Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden is blasting a Boston choose over the case involving ICE’s midtrial arrest exterior a courthouse.
Decide Mark Summerville of Boston Municipal Courtroom final month issued a contempt discovering in opposition to ICE Agent Brian Sullivan for arresting Wilson Martell-Lebron exterior town courthouse in the midst of his jury trial.
Summerville dismissed the case, ruling that the prosecution staff engaged in egregious prosecutorial misconduct — and he referred his contempt findings to the Suffolk DA’s Workplace for potential prosecution of Sullivan.
Hayden introduced on Thursday that the DA’s Workplace had decided that Summerville’s contempt discovering was “without adequate factual or legal basis and barred by the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”
“Therefore, this Office finds that criminal charges based upon Judge Summerville’s patently illegal contempt finding and referral are not warranted,” Hayden stated in an announcement. “Additionally, there was no factual or legal basis to dismiss Wilson Martell-Lebron’s criminal case for prosecutorial misconduct.”
The Suffolk DA’s Workplace has filed a discover of intent to attraction Summerville’s dismissal of the costs in opposition to Martell-Lebron.
In the meantime, Hayden additionally requested that the Division of Justice and the Division of Homeland Safety conduct an investigation into ICE’s actions on this case.
“Although the Commonwealth lacks a factual or legal basis to prosecute Officer Sullivan, we do not condone ICE’s conduct in this case,” Hayden wrote. “The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office endeavors to protect the public in holding offenders accountable through ethical, fact-based prosecutions. The unprofessional and unnecessary detention of the defendant midtrial in this case undermines those important goals.”
“We do not know why ICE decided to take the unprecedent step of arresting the defendant midtrial, interfering with a state criminal prosecution and preventing this office from holding the defendant accountable, but it certainly was not to protect the public,” the DA added.
This case goes again to 2020 when Martell-Lebron was charged with falsely making use of for a license, and forging an RMV doc.
On the day the trial started final month, Martell-Lebron was taken into ICE custody exterior the courthouse.
The subsequent day, ICE officers didn’t carry the defendant again to court docket. The DA’s Workplace moved for a writ of habeas corpus for the defendant, which was allowed “but inexplicably never issued by Judge Summerville despite the statutory requirement,” Hayden stated.
Summerville ended up permitting Martell-Lebron’s movement to dismiss with prejudice, and located Sullivan in contempt of court docket.
“Judge Summerville’s finding of contempt was premised upon the false conclusion that only ICE’s arrest of the defendant prevented him from being present at his trial,” Hayden wrote. “In actuality, Decide Summerville himself additionally prevented the defendant from being current at his trial by refusing to subject a writ of habeas corpus for the defendant after he was taken into ICE custody. Subsequently, the factual foundation for his discovering of contempt was flawed. Furthermore, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Structure bars this workplace from prosecuting Officer Sullivan for arresting the defendant pursuant to federal legislation.
“Judge Summerville’s dismissal based on prosecutorial misconduct was also improper,” the DA added. “Judge Summerville expressly found that the assigned prosecutors did not engage in any misconduct. Instead, he found that two Massachusetts State Police sergeants and Officer Sullivan were members of the ‘prosecution team,’ and engaged in egregious misconduct, which he wrongly imparted to the Commonwealth.”
