A former assistant director of a Boston reentry program for girls has failed but once more to persuade judges {that a} legislation barring soliciting sexual favors from an inmate in change for serving to them get parole shouldn’t apply to him.
Anthony Williams was the assistant director of McGrath Home within the 600-block of Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s South Finish for less than seven months when on Sept. 20, 2021, he allegedly had an inmate carry out oral intercourse on him in change for hiding her failed drug take a look at.
Neighborhood Assets for Justice, or CJR, a Boston-based nonprofit which operates residential reentry applications together with the McGrath Home, by some means came upon in regards to the incident and fired him a month later.
CJR has run reentry applications in partnership with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Division since Jan. 4, 2019, in accordance with paperwork related to the case.
A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Williams in February 2023 below a state legislation that makes it a felony for “(a)n officer or other person who is employed by or contracts with any penal or correctional institution in the (C)ommonwealth … (to) engage () in sexual relations with an inmate … who is … under the direct custodial supervision and control of such officer or other person.” Williams and his attorneys have argued ever since such a legislation shouldn’t apply to him.
“Mr. Williams moved to dismiss the charge on the grounds that (the statute) is inapplicable to him as a matter of law because … he is neither an officer or other person who is ‘employed by’ a penal or correctional institution nor an officer or other person who ‘contracts with’ such an institution,” Williams’ attorneys Randy Gioia, Patrick Gioia, and Benjamin Keehn wrote in a January argument contesting the then-most current failure of the argument.
The argument first failed earlier than Superior Court docket Choose Catherine H. Ham, who certainly discovered Williams to be a “third party contractor” with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Division.
Ham discovered the argument that the legislation shouldn’t apply to Williams as a result of he wasn’t personally contracted to the division however solely employed by an company who’s to be “absurd.” She stated the legislation is clearly supposed “to protect vulnerable inmates from the sexual abuse of those that have power and control over them during their incarceration.”
Williams’ legal professional argued that because it didn’t explicitly say that, then his case must be dismissed “by the rule of lenity,” which implies an interpretation of a legislation most favorable to the defendant. In order that they took the problem to the only justice session of the Supreme Judicial Court docket.
Justice Frank M. Gaziano declined to listen to the argument, saying that Williams may as a substitute search aid by interesting any trial resolution.
Williams’ attorneys wrote that Gaziano’s resolution was an “error” as a result of Williams’ declare was that he shouldn’t be tried below the legislation in any respect as a result of it shouldn’t apply to him.
“The right not to be put to trial for an offense that the Legislature did not enact cannot be remedied after that trial has taken place,” his attorneys wrote, likening the argument to that of a Double Jeopardy declare.
The SJC reviewed his enchantment and on Thursday affirmed Gaziano’s authentic resolution.
“The single justice properly denies relief,” the SJC ruling states.
“The defendant characterizes the issue (of) whether he falls within the scope of (the statute), as presenting ‘a question of law’ that should be ‘settled’ by an appellate court,” the choice later continues. “And as the defendant himself concedes, he will have an opportunity to present this argument to an appellate court on direct appeal, in the event that he is tried and convicted.”
