PROVIDENCE — Dozens of “gap kids” who were charged as adults during the 130 days when Rhode Island prosecuted 17-year-olds as adults are entitled to Family Court hearings to determine if they should be tried in adult courts, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

That includes the most high-profile gap kid, Ryan Greenberg, who has been indicted on a second-degree murder charge in connection with the boating death of another Barrington teenager, Patrick Murphy. The high court backed a trial judge’s decision to hold Greenberg’s indictment “in abeyance” pending a Family Court hearing on whether he should be “waived” into an adult court.

“We hold that juveniles, including defendants before us, should have been presented in the Family Court in the first instance,” Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg wrote in the court’s 26-page opinion. “A juvenile may be referred to adult court only after a probable-cause hearing and a finding by the hearing justice that waiver of jurisdiction is appropriate and consistent with the statute.”

The decision detailed the “jurisdictional quagmire” that resulted from Governor Carcieri’s proposal to save money by treating 17-year-olds as adults in criminal matters. The General Assembly adopted the proposal, which was based on the assumption that the Adult Correctional Institutions would prove cheaper than the Training School.

But the savings proved to be questionable, at best. And, Goldberg wrote, “The record is devoid of any legislative findings that this amendment constituted sound social policy, that it was in the best interests of the juvenile offenders to whom it would apply, or that it was a prudent fiscal measure.”

The Assembly ended up repealing the law. But the repeal was not retroactive, so that created a population of about 500 gap kids who had been charged as adults between July 1 and Nov. 8, 2007.

On Nov. 19, 2007, District Court Chief Judge Albert E. DeRobbio agreed to transfer misdemeanor cases involving those defendants to Family Court.

On Feb. 5, 2008, Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini dismissed felony charges filed in Superior Court against 115 gap kids. While rejecting constitutional arguments, he said those teens should have had Family Court hearings to determine if there was probable cause to charge them in Superior Court, and he held “in abeyance” the indictments of Greenberg and three other teens.

The Supreme Court agreed with much of Procaccini’s reasoning. Technically, yesterday’s ruling only applies to Greenberg and to Harold Chartier, a teenager charged with simple assault, a misdemeanor. But the high court said it realizes many juveniles were charged as adults between July and November 2007. “We therefore shall address the types of cases — felonies and misdemeanors — that are pending or have been adjudicated, and will endeavor to issue a mandate that is comprehensive and clear,” the court said.

Regarding Greenberg, the Supreme Court said, “The next order of business is a waiver hearing in the Family Court.”

The Supreme Court backed DeRobbio’s decision to send Chartier’s case to Family Court, and it said misdemeanors pending in District Court against other gap kids should be transferred to Family Court.

But the high court overruled DeRobbio on misdemeanor cases that have already reached judgments. “[DeRobbio] declared his intention to entertain and grant a motion to transfer to Family Court any adjudicated case of a 17-year-old in which the sentence or probationary term has not been completed,” Goldberg wrote. “We deem this error. Cases for which final judgments have been entered are not subject to transfer to another court unless the convictions are vacated.” Those teens may still seek “post-conviction relief,” however, she noted.

The Supreme Court told the attorney general and the public defender to try to resolve gap kid cases and agree on what cases should be handled in Family Court.

The chief public defender, John J. Hardiman, said he was “very pleased” with yesterday’s ruling “because it puts the cases back where they belong — in Family Court — and it gives them the same due process that any other child would have received prior to enactment of the initial legislation.”

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said he intends to immediately file petitions seeking to waive Greenberg and the three other indicted teens into Superior Court. The three other teens are Darius McClain, who was charged with first-degree robbery in Providence, and Alberto Batista and Hector Otero, who were charged with first-degree robbery, carjacking and using a firearm while committing a crime of violence in Providence, according to the attorney general’s office.

Prosecutors will review another 95 or so felony cases and decide whether to try to waive those gap kids into adult courts, Lynch spokesman Michael J. Healey said.

In a statement, Lynch said, “I think everybody who was victimized by a 17-year-old during the time that this ill-advised and shortsighted law was in effect will find today’s decision unsettling. It will be particularly upsetting, however, to victims of felony offenses, their families and loved ones. To have a certain expectation about a process that is confusing to begin with — and then to have the rug pulled out from under you — must be traumatic.

“What this decision ultimately points out with crystal clarity,” Lynch said, “is how important it is for the people in the State House, both the governor and the legislature, to make truly informed decisions before passing laws.”

Greenberg’s lawyer, William P. Devereaux, said, “It looks to me like it’s the right decision. I don’t think there are a lot of lawyers that were taken aback by it.”

Devereaux said he expected prosecutors to try to waive Greenberg out of Family Court. “We would certainly want to take the opportunity to have that have hearing and contest whether the facts support the premeditated, heinous nature of the offense” that’s alleged in the second-degree murder charge, he said. “I think in the end facts will show no premeditation by this young man.”

efitzpat@projo.com