Inset: Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph (WBZ). Background: Newton District Courthouse (Google Maps).
A judge from Massachusetts is facing potential dismissal after being accused of assisting an undocumented immigrant in evading federal immigration agents by exiting her courtroom. The special counsel for the Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended her removal from the position.
Following a week of proceedings, special counsel Judith Fabricant urged the commission to remove Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph from the bench over the 2018 incident. The case against Joseph is based on allegations strikingly similar to those facing Milwaukee County Judge Hannah C. Dugan in Wisconsin. Both state judges are accused of assisting migrants in evading capture by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
While prosecutors during Trump’s first term indicted Joseph on federal criminal charges over the 2018 incident, the Biden administration dropped those charges in 2022, provided that the judge left herself at the mercy of the professional conduct panel where she is charged civilly with bringing “disrepute” to the office through “willful judicial misconduct” as well as “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and unbecoming of a judicial officer.”
Fabricant on Monday told the commission that due to the judge’s actions, Joseph could no longer “command the respect and authority essential to judicial function,” according to a report from the Boston Herald. The special counsel reportedly said Joseph should be suspended permanently and her case should be sent to the state legislature and governor, which can formally strip her judgeship.
The hearings, which began June 9, were presided over by attorney Denis McInerney, who was appointed as “Hearing Officer” by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Proceedings concluded on Monday with Fabricant and Thomas Hoopes, Joseph’s defense attorney, giving their closing arguments.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Joseph is accused of assisting Jose Medina-Perez, an undocumented immigrant who had been twice deported from the United States, of evading federal immigration agents. Medina-Perez was arrested again in 2018 and, facing his third deportation in court, an ICE officer arrived to pick up Medina-Perez for potential removal. In the courtroom, discussion ensued as to whether Medina-Perez had been properly identified by ICE.
Ultimately, at the judge’s direction, a court clerk told the ICE officer to wait outside the courtroom while Medina-Perez, with assistance from a court officer, went downstairs before exiting through the courthouse’s rear door. Joseph has maintained that she only sent Medina-Perez downstairs so he could speak privately with his attorney and was completely unaware that he had “gone out the back door.”
“She knew nothing about it,” lawyer Elizabeth Mulvey reportedly said, adding that the judge expected ICE to “do its job.”
The case will hinge on a 52-second sidebar that took place just prior to Medina-Perez being let out the back door. What was said during the sidebar is reportedly unknown, as Fabricant said Joseph violated conduct rules by not making a record of that portion of the hearing.
Medina-Perez’s defense attorney, David Jellinek, testified that he asked for the sidebar to be off the record, as the topic of the discussion was “right on the edge of acceptable,” the Herald reported.
During the sidebar, Jellinek reportedly said he asked Joseph to send Medina-Perez to the downstairs courthouse jail so he could avoid the federal agents who were in the lobby on the first floor waiting to arrest him.
Joseph’s attorney on Monday reportedly mounted a personal attack on Jellinek, asserting that the attorney “made up” his testimony after reaching a deal with federal prosecutors to avoid criminal charges in the matter and was willing to say anything to save his own skin.
“David Jellinek is a liar. David Jellinek is not just any liar — he’s a criminal, who for some reason is still practicing this trade,” Hoopes said, per the Herald. “Not just as a lawyer, but as a liar.”
Both parties will file post-hearing briefs by July 10, and McInerney will subsequently send his recommendation regarding Joseph’s fate to the commission within 30 days.
