Bristol DA to argue in high court for tough stance against guns

January 2, 2009 06:59 PM Email| Comments (6)| Text size – +

By Globe Staff

Does carrying a gun illegally make you a danger to the public?

Bristol District Attorney Samuel Sutter thinks it does -- and he'll be arguing that Monday in the state's highest court. But defense attorneys say he's gone too far in his zeal to fight crime.

Sutter has been asking courts for dangerousness hearings when defendants face firearms charges such as illegally carrying guns or possessing high-capacity guns. After a dangerousness hearing, which is usually sought when people are charged with violent or potentially violent crimes, a judge can order a defendant held without bail for 90 days.

Sutter's office says that Bristol prosecutors began pursuing the hearings when Sutter was sworn into office two years ago and they've triumphed in 141 of 197 hearings. The office also says the county has seen a corresponding decline in illegal gun violence.

"I wanted to create an immediate perception throughout Bristol County that the crimes of illegally carrying firearms, illegally possessing high-capacity weapons, and using an illegal firearm to facilitate drug dealing were going to be prosecuted much differently and much more aggressively than before. ... And it has worked," Sutter said today in a statement.

Attorneys on the other side think that Sutter's interpretation of the law is incorrect. They say carrying a gun illegally is not a crime that should allow prosecutors to ask for someone to be held without bail.

Attorneys representing Shamusideen Alabi, whose case is one of two in which Sutter's view of the law is being challenged, said in a court filing that "a charge of a possessory firearm violation is not an offense that by its nature presents a substantial risk that physical harm to another will result, and thus is not a predicate offense" for a dangerousness hearing and for pretrial detention.

Any change in the type of crime that entitles prosecutors to seek a dangerousness hearing "is a matter for the Legislature, not this court," Alabi's attorneys, Elizabeth Doherty and Rene G. Brown of Fall River, argued.

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6 comments so far...

since there is a law on the books for a 1 year mandatory sentence for carrying a firearm without a license why not just try enforcing it. It's the judicial system and the lawyers that make a mockery of the laws passed for enactment. You read about it every day, caught carrying a pistol/no license/probation or 30 days in jail. Come on, the law was passed and there was not supposed to be any if's, and's or buts about it, 1 year in jail. Enforce the laws on the books now and you won't need any more penny anti grand standing by these so called lawyers.

Posted by laws abound January 2, 09 08:03 PM

If the courts would only uphold the Bartley Fox law, these defense lawyers would not have a chance to free a dangerous criminal. Carrying a gun without a license is a serious crime

Mandatory 1yr in jail for carrying without a license.

Posted by legal45.acp January 2, 09 08:22 PM

If someone just wishes to protect themselves from an ever increasingly violent criminal element how does that make them a greater danger to the public?
The Bay State has made it nearly impossible for law abiding residents to own or carry a firearm legally for protection for a good many years. As a result we have a situation where only the criminals own weapons. They shoot up the neighborhoods as the good people are forced to huddle behind closed doors while stray rounds zing through their homes.
Again how does this law make the neighborhoods safer? How is justice being served when the innocent is being brushed by the same wide brush that is meant to net criminals?
Police can not be everywhere. How is the public going to protect themselves in light of the violence that infest many communities? What is needed is common sense laws on gun control and not these knee-jerk reactions to the growing violence.

Posted by M. P. R. Howard January 3, 09 11:55 AM

Bravo, Mr. Sutter. Rapid and negative consequences to carrying illegal firearms is wisdom. I hope Boston takes this road. And, if the defense attorneys are correct, and we need the legislature to back Mr. Sutter up, then lets ask the legislature to do so!

If the person carrying an illegal firearm can attend a dangerousness hearing and explain any non-dangerous reason for their behavior, let them. It's hard to imagine how those 56 people who won at their hearings explained themselves.

Posted by KB January 3, 09 11:58 AM

Mr. Sutter is a terrorist. He forces peaceful people, who just want to be able to defend themselves and their families from harm, to fear "the law" if they carry effective self defense tools. "Shall not be infringed" means exactly that. Mr. Sutter is the criminal here. He should be tried for his involvement in a conspiracy against rights, 18 USC 241, a federal felony with a five-year penalty.

Posted by Bill St. Clair January 4, 09 08:57 AM

But, legal45.acp, the mere carrying or possession of a gun, with or without, a license should not be a serious crime though in many places it has been made into a serious crime. That is, perhaps, the whole point of the overall debate between the ignorant Neandertalic dark forces of the NRA and the intellectually and socially superior enlightened legions of Bradyites. I deduce by your apparent acceptance and support for a mandatory 1 year paid sabbatical that you already have accepted the paradigm that government is the arbiter of your civil liberties, not the Constitution.

Posted by Fred Watkins January 4, 09 11:22 AM