Boston man charged with murder recently had weapon, drug case dropped due to lawyer crisis
A 29-year-old man accused of a fatal stabbing in Mattapan over the weekend who was held without bail on Monday had already faced unrelated drug and weapon charges — which were dropped less than a month ago because he did not have a lawyer.
Javonte Robinson, 29, of Mattapan, was arrested in the area of 247 Neponset Valley Parkway in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston on Sunday afternoon, Boston Police said.
Robinson is accused of stabbing another man to death at around 7:20 p.m. on Saturday, near 30 Fremont St. in Mattapan, police said. He was arraigned on a charge of murder in Dorchester Municipal Court on Monday and ordered held without bail.
Robinson has an attorney for this case — private criminal defense lawyer Michael Tumposky, according to court filings. Tumposky was not immediately available for comment Monday afternoon.
This differs from Robinson's situation in the same courthouse less than a month ago, when he faced dangerous weapon and drug possession charges stemming from an incident in August. Those charges were dismissed without prejudice on Oct. 22, with the Commonwealth filing to reopen the case on Oct. 29.
Robinson's previous charges had been dismissed due to the Lavallee protocol — an emergency safeguard that forces judges to release defendants without counsel after seven days and dismiss cases after 45.
Defendants are going without counsel because bar advocate attorneys, or criminal defense lawyers who take on cases for those who cannot afford a lawyer, have stopped taking on new cases since Memorial Day.
This has left thousands of people without counsel throughout the past months and led to hundreds of cases — such as Robinson's previous drug and weapon charges — dismissed.
Lawmakers tried to ease the crisis in August by passing a law to raise hourly rates for bar advocates from $65 to $85 by 2027, a move the bar advocates called "a slap in the face."
The bill also included language to prevent another bar advocate work stoppage, and a $40 million allocation of funds to the Committee for Public Counsel Services to (CPCS) to hire 320 more lawyers and lessen the agency's heavy reliance on bar advocates.
But with the crisis rolling into late fall, CPCS has taken further action by way of a one-time $2,500 incentive to assist in the "prompt assignment" of attorneys to criminal defendants with cases in Suffolk and Middlesex district courts or in the Boston Municipal Courts who are currently unrepresented.
The program, which closed at 5 p.m. on Monday, allowed lawyers who chose to participate to receive a maximum total of $7,500 for accepting 15 new cases, on top of their normal hourly rate.
That effort helped drive the count down from more than 2,000 in October to 736 as of Nov. 13 — but CPCS was still arguing last week that "even stronger medicine" is still needed, by way of dismissals "with prejudice." This would stop prosecutors from recharging defendants with crimes.
While he acknowledged Robinson's presumed innocence in the Mattapan killing, cases such as Robinson's are a "tragedy [that] could have been avoided," said Sean Delaney, bar advocate attorney for Middlesex and Barnstable counties.
"In terms of Mr. Robinson, with him being accused of murder less than one month after prior charges being dismissed under the Lavallee protocol — my first reaction is one of condolences to the family and friends of the victim," Delaney said.
Delaney placed blame on legislators and said if the state had stopped its two-decade-long "assault on the constitutional right to counsel for the poor ... by appropriately and periodically raising the rate of pay for the talented and hard-working bar advocates, there is a distinct possibility that this tragedy may never had occurred."
"This has resulted in an exodus from the bar advocate programs of very highly qualified attorneys, and it has stifled the efforts to recruit young and capable attorneys to becoming bar advocates," Delaney added.
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