SPRINGFIELD — One is a mayor. The other a felon. They don’t have much in common, except this: Their names come up, again and again, over the question of releasing pre-trial defendants on bail.
It’s well known that Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno has waged a long offensive against judges he perceives to be lax on bail and soft on crime.
But another Springfield man, Jahmal Brangan, has had more influence on how courts actually operate. His story in the Massachusetts legal system sheds light on Sarno’s long quest to have the courts hold repeat offenders, in part by setting high bail amounts.
It began when Brangan was accused in an East Springfield bank robbery. He unwittingly changed bail standards in the commonwealth and won a historic victory on behalf of cash-strapped defendants when he prevailed in a 2017 case before the Supreme Judicial Court.
After his trial for the 2014 robbery ended in a mistrial, Brangan was held by a judge on a $50,000 cash bail while awaiting a new trial. Among other factors in setting the high bail, the judge cited Brangan’s lengthy criminal history – which included convictions for child rape.
Brangan appealed the bail amount to the high court, arguing he could not afford it, since he had lost his job while incarcerated. The court sided with him, ruling that judges must consider defendants’ financial means when setting bail.
“A bail that is set without any regard to whether a defendant is a pauper or a plutocrat runs the risk of being excessive and unfair,” retired Supreme Judicial Court Judge Geraldine S. Hines wrote in her historic decision.
And yet, what happened later only highlights the grievances Sarno airs whenever given the chance: Courts, he says, need to do more to keep bad actors off the streets.
The year after the SJC ruling, Brangan appeared before a Hampden Superior Court judge to plead guilty to armed robbery. He received time served after his battle through the courts. The sentence was accompanied by a solemn admonition.
“You’ve got to do whatever it takes to amend your behavior,” Judge David Ricciardone told Brangan, according to a story published in The Republican.
But instead of parlaying his victory before the SJC to a more promising future, he and a codefendant were charged in 2020 with home invasion and related crimes. According to court records, Brangan and his partner dressed up as police officers, assaulted a number of residents in front of children and were captured by police as they exited an apartment building in Holyoke with bundles of cash and marijuana.
This time, a judge held Brangan on $25,000 cash bail, despite the decision bearing his name, court records show.
Nonetheless, the Brangan case before the SJC is still cited by judges across the commonwealth and remains very much a part of the ongoing debate over bail amounts for criminal defendants.
The rancor has been particularly loud in Springfield, a city that has seen rising gun violence this year.
One of the most vocal critics of judges who are perceived to be soft on crime is Sarno, who faces four challengers in the coming preliminary election and produced a campaign spot focused on his “war on crime,” his avowed priority.
“Our courts must keep repeat violent offenders behind bars,” Sarno says sternly in the 30-second ad, index finger aloft, a copy of which was provided by Horgan Associates. “Criminals will not rule our streets!”
The legal standard
It has been a refrain for Sarno for years, particularly when there have been spikes in crime.
While the battle cry may play well with voters, judges and attorneys argue Sarno is oversimplifying the issue and ignoring the fact that judges have limited discretion when setting bail under state law — and what’s known as the Brangan doctrine.
Judges and clerk magistrates point to the standards they must consider per the Trial Court of Massachusetts, with the Brangan decision layered on top. A standard form used by clerk magistrates and judges in both district and superior courts sets 19 criteria, with the defendant’s financial resources topping the list.
Other factors judges and clerks must consider:
- The nature and circumstances of the offense charged.
- The potential penalty attached to the crime.
- Family ties and the defendant’s employment record.
- The defendant’s record of conviction.
- The defendant’s failure to appear at previous court appearances.
- The defendant’s probation status and whether he or she was already out on bail when the new alleged offense occurred.
Judges must memorialize on a separate form why they opted to set a certain bail or not.
Defendants have an automatic right to appeal a high bail to a Superior Court judge. Prosecutors are not afforded the same option, but can seek a “dangerousness hearing” if they feel a defendant should be held.
Judges and legal observers in Massachusetts agree: Bail is not designed to be punitive. Its function is to provide incentives to assure defendants show up for their subsequent court dates.
Criminal defense and civil rights attorney Luke Ryan argues that keeping criminal defendants behind bars has a more corrosive effect on society than letting them out. “When you’re talking about public safety, public safety gets impacted when you hold people and they lose employment,” he said.
“They lose housing or custody of children,” Ryan said. “You’re kicking a can down the road and increasing the odds someone will reoffend after they are eventually released.”
Ryan said he is not without sympathy for residents of Springfield and the victims of gun violence. “I understand what Springfield is going through … right now, but it’s not because of lax bail laws — and we don’t have lax bail laws,” he said.
Ryan said district attorneys can call for dangerousness hearings, which can result in a defendant being held without the right to bail for 120 days. He contends district attorneys prefer to seek high cash bails as opposed to being forced to tip their hands early on potential evidence against defendants.
“They prefer high cash bails that people can’t pay because it’s less work and they can get there without putting things out there like the details of a traffic stop, for instance,” Ryan said.
Prosecutor’s view
Law enforcement officials insist they are doing all they can with the resources available to them.
For his part, Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni bristled at the notion that his office underutilizes the dangerousness statute. He said his staff has increased the use of them steadily since the Brangan decision was issued.
Statistics provided by his office show that since the Brangan ruling, requests for dangerousness hearings from his office increased from 144 in 2017, to 199 in 2018, 290 in 2019, 438 in 2020, 375 in 2021 and 412 in 2022.
“The fundamental idea that we’re concerned about testing our evidence is mostly false,” Gulluni said. “Also the numbers of dangerousness hearings in my office do not bear that out. Brangan has swept into our court system and we started increasing our numbers as a response.”
Further, Gulluni said the increase in dangerousness hearings was a response to violent crime rates in local communities such as Springfield and Holyoke.
“It’s not to say we seek to hold everyone who commits crimes. There are a small percentage of the criminal population who are really violent. We are working to identify those people and and working to incarcerate them,” Gulluni said. “We are turning the screws as much as we possibly can.”
The county’s top prosecutor also said judges still possess the discretion to set higher bails, despite the laws that are in place.
Judges as scapegoats
Other stakeholders in the court system believe judges are being unfairly scapegoated for the city’s violent crime rate.
“It is unfortunate that there still exists a profound lack of understanding regarding bail,” said Springfield District Court Clerk Magistrate John S. Gay. “While it is politically opportunistic to blame judges for everything that is wrong in the community — the blaming flies in the face of the fundamental presumption of innocence that stays with a defendant until they are convicted by a jury at trial. They don’t lose that presumption at a bail hearing.”
His staff is tasked with setting bail if a defendant is arrested after hours, before they appear in front of a judge.
“This issue is old. History shows that demagoguery has been with us forever. But despite the unfair and hurtful rhetoric, it is essential to remember that the Springfield District Court has attempted to address the underlying issues in this community,” Gay said.
The clerk magistrate cited the presence of a mental health court, a drug court, a regional veterans’ treatment court and the Emerging Adult Court of Hope for young defendants.
Retired judges interviewed about the bail issue offered differing perspectives. Sitting judges are expected to refrain from commenting on the issue.
Retired Springfield District Court Judge John Payne, now city solicitor for the Sarno administration, found himself in a slightly awkward position when asked about the topic. When he stands beside his boss at press conferences as Sarno hammers away at judges, he cringes a little.
“I do understand where the mayor is coming from. I really do. But even when I used to discuss this topic with him while I was still on the bench, I tried to explain that he can’t criticize us for this,” Payne said. “We have laws to which we have to adhere. When people are jumping up and down yelling about this they should be yelling at the Legislature.”
A bill filed four years ago by state Rep. Angelo Puppolo seeking to give prosecutors the option of appealing a low bail has not advanced. Even his colleagues in the western Massachusetts delegation have not gotten on board. Puppolo has continued to push the proposed legislation, at Sarno’s urging.
“I’m optimistic but I’m a realist. I understand the constitutional implications here and I’m not suggesting we lock everyone up. I just think prosecutors could use another tool in their tool boxes,” Puppolo said.
After retiring following 20 years on the bench, Payne said that even if a judge is facing a defendant accused of a relatively serious crime, if that person has had steady employment, housing and ties to the community, it can be a tough sell to set too high a bail.
And defendants can appeal a bail to the Superior Court, where decisions over a defendant’s release can diverge.
Retired District Court Judge and former Springfield Mayor Mary Hurley said those diversions can occasionally give judges in the lower court “a bad rap.”
She pointed to the instance of convicted serial rapist and murderer Stewart Weldon, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to the murders of three women whose remains were discovered hidden in his home and yard on Page Boulevard three years earlier.
Weldon also pleaded guilty to dozens of sexual assault charges and was sentenced to three consecutive life prison terms.
Prior to his arrest on those charges, Weldon was charged with less serious crimes, but held without right to bail by a district court judge, Hurley said. He appealed the decision to the Superior Court, where he was released on a GPS bracelet. He cut the monitoring device off and left it on the steps of the courthouse, police said at the time.
“And then he went on to kidnap, rape and kill women,” Hurley said.
She conceded this was an extreme example, and most advocates for criminal defendants would argue Weldon is not the norm.
Hurley also reflected on her time as a one-term mayor in the 1980s, when crime was not quite so rampant on street corners throughout the city.
“It wasn’t gangs and sophisticated drug operations. There were not all these incredible shootings on the street that were done with impunity. A judge has to be aware of the surroundings that he or she serves,” Hurley said.
The city has seen 26 homicides so far this year — a nearly 30-year high.
Hurley also was critical of the Brangan decision.
“I don’t think Brangan was the best piece of work ever done by the SJC,” said Hurley, also a former member of the Governor’s Council, which vets judicial candidates. “And there are some judges who overread it.”
