U.S. drops charges against Massachusetts judge in immigration arrest case

[zinn]

BOSTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Thursday said they reached
an agreement to drop criminal charges filed during the Trump
administration against a Massachusetts judge accused of impeding a federal
immigration arrest of a defendant in her courtroom.

Federal prosecutors said they had agreed to dismiss the obstruction
charges filed against Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph in
exchange for the judge referring herself to a state commission tasked with
investigating judicial misconduct.

Prosecutors are also dropping obstruction charges against her former
courtroom deputy, Wesley MacGregor, who entered into a deferred
prosecution agreement to resolve a remaining perjury count.

The high-profile case was filed in 2019 during clashes between former
Republican President Donald Trump's administration and local governments
that resisted his immigration crackdown and courthouse arrests by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

"This was a patently political indictment, blindly grounded in
prosecutorial ambition," Thomas Hoopes, Joseph's lawyer, said.

Prosecutors claimed Joseph and MacGregor in 2018 helped a previously
deported state court defendant evade being detained by an ICE agent by
allowing him leave their Newton courthouse through a rear door.

Then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, a Trump appointee, first brought the
case. His successor, Rachael Rollins, an appointee of Democratic President
Joe Biden, as Boston's district attorney sued to block immigration arrests
at courthouses after Joseph's indictment.

Due to Rollins' conflict, the case was reassigned to Rhode Island U.S.
Attorney Zachary Cunha, leaving him to decide whether to move forward
after a federal appeals court in February declined to toss the indictment.

"I have concluded that the interests of justice are best served by review
of this matter before the body that oversees the conduct of Massachusetts
state court judges, rather than in a continued federal criminal
prosecution," Cunha said.

Under Thursday's agreement, Joseph made certain factual admissions that
the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct can consider when
deciding to recommend whether the state's top court discipline her.

Lelling, now in private practice, said he respected Cunha's decision, as
"prosecutors are going to differ on what they think is appropriate in a
given case – especially in unusual cases." He urged the commission to "get
to the bottom" of what happened.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-drops-charges-against-massachusetts-
judge-accused-obstructing-immigration-2022-09-22/