Arguing against a ‘loophole’
Lawyers: Feds lack power to prosecute Joseph
Shelley Joseph’s legal team argued Thursday federal prosecutors have no constitutional authority to prosecute the judge for allegedly allowing an illegal immigrant to slip past an ICE agent in her Newton courtroom in 2018.
Joseph, earning her $184,000-ayear salary while suspended from her post, sat silently in a Zoom hearing while her lawyers argued for a dismissal of her obstruction of justice indictment before federal Judge Leo Sorokin in a longawaited hearing.
“I think it’s clear the federal government couldn’t come in and pass a law that says a state court judge has to let a defendant out through an exit where ICE is waiting,” attorney Doug Brooks said.
Prosecutors say Joseph conferred with the attorney of an illegal immigrant to form an escape plan from an ICE agent waiting in the courtroom, and former court officer Wesley MacGregor led the immigrant, referred to as “A.S.” in the case, “out of the courthouse’s backdoor.”
“Just because they didn’t pass a law prohibiting that,” Brooks said, “They shouldn’t use obstruction as some sort of constitutional loophole.”
Joseph’s legal team did not discuss the judge’s charged accusations of bias by feds, after Sorokin told the sides he’d read all the opposing briefs leading up to the hearing.
Brooks pointed to a violation of the 10th Amendment, prohibiting the federal government from intruding on state powers including Joseph’s “judicial immunity” to oversee actions within her courtroom.
“Any alleged wrongdoing falls out of the reach of the federal government and is a matter for the Massachusetts state government to handle,” Brooks said.
MacGregor’s counsel, Rosemary Scapicchio, suggested her client be dropped from prosecution because of the lack of evidence that he was involved directly in forming the escape scheme.
“They’re prosecuting him for failing to enforce a warrant that their own indictment doesn’t say he received,” Scapicchio said, pointing to MacGregor’s presence in a plexiglass area for A.S. while the plan was allegedly cooked up at the judge’s bench.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Wichers stood pat on the feds’ allegations of obstruction, unwavering in response to Joseph’s lawyers’ allegations of multiple constitutional violations.
“(Judges) shouldn’t be able to say, I’m going to make an unpopular, or popular decision that I know is a crime and get away with it because I know I have judicial immunity,” Wichers said, referring to Joseph’s defense regarding her alleged control of the courtroom. “That doesn’t benefit the public, that destroys the public’s confidence.”
Sorokin took the motion to dismiss under advisement, telling parties he’d work for a prompt decision.