A Massachusetts court vacated the sex trafficking convictions against a Black Muslim man after finding his attorney’s anti-Muslim social media posts.
By Kalyn Womack
In a shocking high court ruling Thursday, a Black Muslim man who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking charges had his conviction vacated. According to AP News, the man’s attorney had a nasty record of posting racist and anti-Muslim content on social media. So much for adequate counsel.
Anthony Dew was handed a 19-charge indictment in 2015. Of those counts were five of trafficking a person for sexual servitude and one count of rape, the report says. When he met the late attorney Richard Doyle, he knew he was being represented by a whole bigot. Dew was scolded for wearing a kufi (prayer cap) and from that day on, Doyle refused to interact with his client if he continued to wear it.
Doyle, like most court appointed attorneys who could care less about their client, urged Dew to sign a plea deal and sold himself away to prison for 10 years. However, from the span of time before the two met and after Dew was sentenced, Doyle was getting a bit careless on social media.
Attorney Richard Doyle had a conflict of interest that deprived the defendant of his right to effective assistance of counsel, “a right upon which our entire system of criminal justice depends,” the Supreme Judicial Court wrote in its unanimous decision released Thursday.
“These posts … included a variety of anti-Muslim slurs and statements calling for violence against and celebrating the death of persons of the Muslim faith, posts mocking Black individuals, and comments, some apparently made at a state court house, seemingly referring to Doyle’s clients as ‘thugs’ and suggesting that Doyle’s nonwhite clients were criminals,” the court’s decision said.
Dew did not become aware of his attorney’s bigoted posts until 2021, the same year Doyle died. Dew filed a motion for a new trial and asked to withdraw his guilty pleas. A lower court judge denied his motion and it went to the high court.
Dew was released from prison on parole but his case leaves questions about how to move forward. When was the last time a Black man was let out prison because his representation were racists? Actually, when was the last time the court cared that the lawyers were racist?
The report says the Suffolk district attorney’s office has a few options. They can either take it to trial, dismiss the charges or negotiate another plea.
Dew was two years away from making it to time served. If he gets to stay home, the move will be big for any other Black defendant facing the same adversity from the people ordered to help them.
