By John R. Ellement
Globe Staff / October 6, 2008
In some ways, it has been a good year for Robert Aldrich, a Dorchester man who Suffolk County prosecutors allege has spent much of his adult life breaking into people's homes across Greater Boston and making off with purses, laptops, and jewelry.
Representing himself, he has persuaded two Superior Court judges to toss out evidence, rulings so crippling to prosecutors that two other Superior Court judges stopped trials midstream and declared him not guilty of multiple break-ins in Boston this summer.
Aldrich now wants the state to pay him $66,283.85 - including income lost while in jail awaiting trial, (just how much would he have earned from stealing in that time frame?) money to replace his mother's sport utility vehicle, (after he pays the storage charge for not having picked it up, what would that come to?) which was crushed after it was left in a Boston tow lot, and money to replace a doorframe he said police broke when they searched his Bullard Street home. (Guess someone should have opened the door FOR them.)
"I am simply asking for compensation," Aldrich told Suffolk Superior Court Judge Nancy Staffier-Holtz on Friday.
Aldrich, who said he has been trained as a paralegal, is relying on a state law so obscure that several defense lawyers interviewed were unfamiliar with it. Enacted around 1911 and updated in 1978, it has been reviewed by the Supreme Judicial Court three times, the last time in 1988.
Under the law, someone jailed for more than six months awaiting trial who has been acquitted, or had charges dropped, is entitled to what he or she would have earned based on two years of income history. If the person is unemployed, a judge determines a "reasonable sum." (What it cost to house and feed him should be deducted if you ask me.)
In order to collect, however, the person must show that the time spent behind bars was not his or her fault, the SJC has said. That person also must not have agreed to a continuance or given "implied consent" to postpone trial, a standard that one lawyer said Friday limits any chance of recovery.
"The implied consent kills you," said Stephen Hrones, who has sued on behalf of the wrongly convicted, but not for anyone who had been acquitted. "I just didn't think [a suit had] any chance of success in light of the case law."
Aldrich's case began on March 12, 2007, when Milton police investigating a break-in were given a description of an SUV driving away. One officer drove into Dorchester, spotted Aldrich driving his mother's SUV around dawn, and pulled him over because he allegedly did not have the headlights on.
The officer called for backup, and three Milton cruisers blocked Aldrich on the Dorchester street until Boston police arrived, and arrested him for allegedly driving with a suspended license.
Boston police got a search warrant and found ATM cards, purses, a rotary saw, a computer, and books on how to improve your writing (well every criminal should know how to write well)- pieces of property stolen from eight locations, according to court records.
Following hearings at which Aldrich questioned witnesses - including one Milton officer who said he remembered Aldrich from a break-in at his mother's house in the 1980s - Superior Court Judge Thomas E. Connolly ruled that Milton police had no legal authority to stop him in Boston, and blocked prosecutors from linking Aldrich to the SUV. (Why would anyone link a guy to his MOTHER'S SUV?)
The judge also said Aldrich was pulled over after sunrise. He noted in his opinion that Milton police stopped Aldrich around 6:20 a.m., on a day when sunrise was 6:10 a.m. On that day, Aldrich would have been able to shut his headlights off at 5:40 a.m. legally, according to the ruling. (First off, if it's freaking dark, it's dark, that whole 1/2 before and after is silly. Second, so the Milton Officer was required to know precisely the time of sunrise? WTF???)
Aldrich also demonstrated at the hearings that he had his license suspension overturned, and had been driving with a legal permit.
Prompted again by Aldrich after other hearings, Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano ruled in favor of Aldrich and said prosecutors could not use the stolen items against Aldrich because of the illegal stop by Milton police, according to court records.
Suffolk prosecutors still went to trial, but lost earlier this year.
At the time of his arrest, police seized the SUV and had it taken to a private Dorchester tow lot, according to court records. When the registered owner - identified in court records as Aldrich's mother - did not respond to registered letters asking her to claim the vehicle, the SUV was sent to a junkyard and crushed, (what a freaking shame. Guess someone should have answered those letters) according to court records.
