Commonwealth v. Dew

492 Mass. 254 (2023)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D is a Black man of the Muslim faith. D was indicted on nineteen charges, including five counts of trafficking a person for sexual servitude, and one count of rape. During one of the first encounters between D and Doyle, the attorney, D was wearing a Kufi prayer cap. Doyle demanded that D remove his religious garb, instructing him, “Don't come in this room like that ever.” At a meeting approximately two weeks later, Doyle left without speaking with D upon seeing that he again was wearing a Kufi. Doyle again met with D at the courthouse shortly before the scheduled trial date in May 2016. Doyle chastised D, in front of a court officer, not to wear “that shit” - an apparent reference to D's Kufi - in court. Doyle also advised D to accept a plea offer and informed him that any attempt to seek newly appointed counsel would likely be futile on the eve of trial. D pleaded guilty to all but the rape charge as part of a plea agreement pursuant to which the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the rape charge. D stated that he was satisfied with counsel's representation and that no one had pressured him into pleading guilty. The trial judge sentenced D to concurrent terms of from eight to ten years in State prison for four of the five counts of trafficking a person for sexual servitude and the count charging a second and subsequent offense of possession of a class A substance with intent to distribute. On the remaining counts, the judge sentenced D to seven years of probation from and after his incarceration. From at least 2014 through 2017, including during the time Doyle represented D, Doyle made and shared numerous racist and bigoted public postings on his social media account, reflecting prejudice against Black persons and persons of the Muslim faith. They included a variety of anti-Muslim slurs and statements calling for violence against and celebrating the death of persons of the Muslim faith, mocking Black individuals, and comments, some apparently made at a State court house referring to Doyle's clients as “thugs” and suggesting that Doyle's nonwhite clients were criminals. In 2017, CPCS investigated a complaint against Doyle and concluded, based on the social media posts, that Doyle violated his duty of loyalty to his Muslim and “other non-Caucasian” clients; CPCS suspended Doyle from criminal case assignments for a period of one year and required Doyle to take ethics and cultural competency courses. D discovered the facts in 2021. D filed a motion for a new trial and for leave to withdraw his guilty pleas claiming that Doyle had an actual conflict of interest and thus Doyle's representation of him violated his right to the effective assistance of counsel under art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The judge concluded that absent a showing of prejudice or “any showing that [Doyle's] views affected [his] representation of D,” D was not entitled to withdraw his guilty plea. The Judge stated that “a lawyer who expresses racist views in his personal life” is not “presumed ineffective any time that he or she represents a client of color.” D appealed, and this court granted his application for direct appellate review.