SJC decision allows for sex offender's release

6-15-2014 Massachusetts:

The state’s Supreme Judicial Court this week ruled that Level 3 sex offender David Gangi can no longer be held as a sexually dangerous person because it’s unlawful and unconstitutional.

By a unanimous 7-0 vote, the justices ruled that Gangi, 75, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old man at his Andover apartment in 2005, can no longer be kept at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for sexually dangerous persons, according to the decision issued Wednesday.

Gangi’s decision was handed down the same day the SJC ruled a state law created “community parole for life” for sex offenders was unconstitutional. Only judges can impose additional jail time on sex offenders who have completed their original sentences, according to the ruling.

In addition to the 2005 incident, Gangi also had sexual assault convictions in 1992 and 1993 involving 14-and 15-year-old boys and was previously described by Superior Court Judge Leila Kern as “someone with a sex addiction who can’t control himself.”

Assistant District Attorney Melissa Woodard, asking for Gangi to face the maximum prison sentence in 2008, said he “is unable to control his sexual urges and children and adults have suffered because of it.”

A person classified as a Level 3 sex offender means he is most likely to re-offend.

After his conviction on Jan. 30, 2008, Gangi was sentenced to four to five years in state prison and also subjected to “community parole supervision for life.” In April 2013, after he was released from prison, Gangi tested positive for opiate use during a routine drug test, according to the decision.

Gangi was taken into custody on April 2, 2013 and later that month, the parole board issued its decision saying Gangi had violated his lifetime community parole.

That same month, the state filed a “sexually dangerous person” petition against Gangi, seeking to have him committed to the state’s treatment center for such persons. That motion was granted on April 30, 2013, according to the decision.

Gangi subsequently appealed to the SJC which heard his case “concurrently with other cases also raising questions regarding the constitutionality of the (community parole supervision for life) sentence,” according to the decision.

Current law said the state Parole Board can sentence sex offenders to additional terms of incarceration if they violate the terms of what’s called community parole supervision for life.

But the SJC ruled that the current law violated the state constitution because re-sentencing offenders is a job that rests squarely with the state’s judiciary, not the parole board, which is part of the executive branch of government. The law violates the separation of powers under the Constitution, the court said.

The court said if the Legislature wants to require a period of supervised release for sex offenders after they complete their sentences and to authorize additional prison time when an offender violates that supervised release, it can do so without violating the state constitution.

“Such legislation simply must require that a judge, rather than the parole board or another executive agency, determine whether a sex offender has violated a condition of supervised release and whether a new of suspended term of imprisonment should be imposed,” Justice Ralph Gants wrote.

The SJC said anyone who has been sentenced to lifetime community parole must be re-sentenced by a judge. The court said roughly 275 to 300 people would fall into that category and would create a “substantial, but manageable burden” on the court system.

House Minority Leader Brad Jones, R-North Reading, said his legal counsel is looking at drafting legislation to address the ruling.

“Anything that potentially removes of a level of protection for the community concerns me,” Jones said. ..Source.. by Jill Harmacinski

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