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Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph, a District Court Judge, leaves the Federal Court on Thursday, April 25, 2019 in Boston after being charged with obstructing justice for allegedly helping a local man escape from the United States illegally. immigration officers while he was leaving her. a hearing in 2018. (AP Photo / Steven Senne)
BOSTON – A Massachusetts judge was charged Thursday for helping a man who lived in the United States to sneak illegally through a back door of the courthouse to escape a pending immigration officer.
Shelley M. Richmond Joseph, a judge in the Newton District Court, and former court official, Wesley MacGregor, were charged with obstructing justice for letting this man escape after a hearing at the court. last year under drug possession charges.
The charges against Joseph and MacGregor were promptly condemned in a statement by the state attorney general, who described the case as "a radical and political attack" against the courts by the federal authorities .
Lawyers, judges and lawyers have criticized the government of President Donald Trump for intensifying the arrests of immigrants in courthouses, saying that it disrupted the criminal justice system and caused the courts to flee.
US Massachusetts lawyer Andrew Lelling said the charges were not intended to send a message about immigration policy. He added that everyone had to respect the rule of law, even the privileged and the powerful.
"In some corners, I've heard the occasional bang of consternation or outrage at the idea of holding a judge accountable for violating federal law," Lelling said. "But if the law is not applied equally, it can not be credibly applied to anyone."
Joseph, 51, and MacGregor, 56, pleaded not guilty in brief appearances in Boston federal court. Joseph seemed to hold back her tears when she left the courthouse.
"This lawsuit is absolutely political, Shelley Joseph is absolutely innocent," lawyer Thomas Hoopes told attorneys.
An email requesting comments was sent to a MacGregor Public Defender.
Joseph, who was appointed District Court Judge in 2017, was suspended without pay, the Massachusetts Supreme Court announced.
Authorities say that an immigration officer was in the courtroom to detain him when he appeared in the Newton court in April 2018. The Dominican man was expelled twice and prevented from entering the United States until 2027, prosecutors said.
Authorities say Joseph's clerk asked the officer to leave the courtroom and told him that the suspect would be released in the courthouse lobby.
After the hearing, MacGregor drove the accused to the basement and let him out the back door, prosecutors said.
The man was arrested by immigration officials about a month later, Lelling said, and is currently in immigration proceedings.
The Trump administration has resisted calls for the addition of courthouses to the list of so-called "sensitive places" generally exempt from immigration control, such as schools and places of worship.
Immigration officials said the communities were forcing their hands by refusing to transfer immigrants to local jails and prisons in the custody of Immigration and Customs. They also argue that arrests in courthouses are safer for officers because people must go through metal detectors when they enter courthouses.
Arrests in courthouses took place under former Democratic President Barack Obama, but lawyers and lawyers from across the country said the practice had increased under Trump.
MacGregor, the former court official, was also charged with perjury. The authorities claim that he falsely declared to the grand jury that he was unaware that immigration officers were in the courthouse before letting the suspect leave his home.
"Abuses of power have hurt us all," said Peter Fitzhugh, special agent for US Homeland Security and Immigration investigations at the Boston Customs. "This undermines the government's primary mission of serving the people – it has no place in a just and responsible society."
The Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, criticized Lelling for his charges, saying the case could have been handled by the Judicial Conduct Commission and the state trial court.
"The indictment of today constitutes a radical and political attack on our state and the independence of our courts," Healey said in a statement. "Our constitutional system is based on a fundamental principle: federal prosecutors must not interfere in the imprudence of the functioning of state courts and their administration of justice."
Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts ACLU, called the case "absurd, ironic and deeply detrimental to the rule of law".
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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkinricher
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