Criminal charges often disappear without a trace. There are few rules and fewer records. In these private hearings, who you are — and who you know — may be just as important as right and wrong.
Now it was New Year's Eve and the doorbell wouldn't stop ringing at the apartment complex where Suazo had taken refuge. She knew it was Jim Phane outside, pressing every buzzer in the building.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Phane, let in by a neighbor, was standing there, begging Suazo to talk to him.
Fearful that he'd attack her as he had once before, Suazo discreetly pressed record on her cellphone. Phane threatened her, and when he noticed the phone was recording their conversation, he lunged.
"Jim, don't touch me. Don't touch my face. I don't want you to touch me . . . Stop!"
Suazo later told police that he grabbed her jaw, shoved her, and elbowed her belly before fleeing as she screamed. A judge granted a restraining order, based on her application outlining the alleged history of violence, and police sought a felony assault and battery charge against the ex-boyfriend.
But justice would elude her. The case would go into the darkest corner of the Massachusetts criminal justice system, where closed-door hearings are often held in private offices without public notice, where the outcome is up to the discretion of a single court official who may not have a law degree, and where thousands of substantiated criminal cases go to die every year.
Call it our secret court. No other state in the country has anything like it.
Comment: When the facts are considered to be "highly offensive", going against the mob and presenting the facts is a revolutionary act. As ridiculous as it may seem, Strumia's presentation was actually quite brave. But, in the current environment, he may find it costs him his career.
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