Judge Holds ICE Agent In Contempt After He Detained Suspect During A Trial | EUROtoday

BOSTON (AP) — A choose in Boston is holding a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in contempt after he detained a suspect whereas the person was on trial.

ICE agent Brian Sullivan detained Wilson Martell-Lebron final week as he was leaving courtroom. But a Boston Municipal Court choose issued a ruling Monday towards Sullivan, arguing that he had disadvantaged Martell-Lebron of his rights to due course of and a good trial by taking him into custody.

“It’s a case of violating a defendant’s right to present at trial and confront witnesses against him,” Judge Mark Summerville stated from the bench. “It couldn’t be more serious.”

Summerville dismissed the cost towards Martell-Lebron of constructing false statements on his driver’s license utility ― particularly that he wasn’t Martell-Lebron. After that, Summerville filed the contempt cost towards Sullivan, which may lead Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden assessment the case to find out if any expenses needs to be filed.

“It’s reprehensible,” Ryan Sullivan, considered one of Martell-Lebron’s attorneys stated. “Law enforcement agents have a job to see justice is done. Prosecutors have a job to see justice is done. There is no greater injustice in my mind than the government arresting someone, without identifying themselves, and preventing them from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial.”

A spokesman for ICE didn’t return a name searching for remark.

The transfer by ICE is the most recent effort to focus on Boston over its dealing with of immigration.

President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and Republicans in Congress have accused town of failing to cooperate to get folks charged with violent crimes deported. Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat up for reelection this yr, stated she desires Boston be a welcoming place for immigrants and that metropolis insurance policies restrict cooperation with immigration enforcement.

Sullivan described a tense scene, by which ICE brokers pounced on Martell-Lebron with out figuring out themselves, put him right into a pickup truck and sped away. The trial Thursday had simply begun with opening statements and the primary witnesses.

Sullivan stated Martell-Lebron, who’s from the Dominican Republic and residing with household in Massachusetts, is now on the Plymouth detention facility for allegedly being an undocumented immigrant, he stated.

“What we were challenging is that they arrested him in the middle of his trial and did not return him,” he stated. “If he had been brought to court on Friday morning by ICE, we would not have moved to dismiss. We would not be asking for sanctions. We would have just finished the trial.”

Immigration officers had been a rising presence at courthouses throughout Trump’s first time period, prompting some pushback from judges and different native officers. Trump has gone additional in his second time period by repealing a coverage in place since 2011 to usually keep away from colleges, locations of worship and hospitals.

Under present coverage, immigration officers could make arrests “in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present” and so long as they don’t seem to be prohibited by state or native regulation.

During the two-day listening to, Sullivan stated that the lead prosecution witnessed confirmed that each the Massachusetts State police and prosecutors had been conscious of ICE plans to arrest Martell-Lebron.

In a press release, state police stated they acted appropriately after studying of the plans of ICE. “As in any situation where a member becomes aware of federal immigration enforcement, the Troopers responded appropriately by neither assisting nor obstructing the federal action,” the assertion stated.

James Borghesani, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden stated “we were dismayed and surprised when our prosecution of Wilson Martell-Lebron was interrupted by ICE apprehending him in the middle of his trial.”

“Any claim that we were aware of an attempt to prevent Mr Martell-Lebron from exercising his right to a trial is false.,” he stated in a press release. “It was our intention to try Mr. Martell-Lebron and hold him accountable for the crimes alleged in the complaint. Federal authorities should not have detained him and interfered with our efforts to hold him accountable.”

The contempt case has been referred to the Suffolk district lawyer’s workplace and a spokesman there stated they had been trying into it.

During Trump’s first time period, the judicial system within the state wrestled with how to answer ICE.

Two district attorneys in Massachusetts sued the federal authorities in 2019 searching for to stop arrests at courthouses however dropped the case when former President Joe Biden took workplace.

Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph additionally confronted expenses — which had been later dropped — of serving to a person who was residing within the U.S. illegally evade an immigration enforcement agent. The expenses had been dropped after she agreed to refer herself to a state company that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.