(Boston Globe- Sean Cotter) The killing of an Acton teenage girl last week by her stepfather, who was charged with raping her three years ago, has reenergized an effort to include child rape and other sexual offenses under the state’s dangerousness laws, which would allow prosecutors to detain suspects prior to their trials.
Juliano Santana had been free on $30,000 bail when he tracked down the 16-year-old on her way home from school last Thursday and shot her to death before turning the gun on himself. The murder-suicide occurred as Santana was slated to go to trial in July on three-year-old charges that he sexually assaulted the girlon multiple occasions.
Prosecutors can ask a judge to detain a suspect under the dangerousness law for a variety of violent crimes, including arson, burglary, those involving guns, or incidents in which someone violates a protection order and abuses a past victim. But in 2019, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that rape of a child and similar sexual offenses do not qualify as crimes of violence under the dangerousness law, and so cannot be subject to dangerousness hearings.
While opponents say such detentions are already used too often and deprive suspects who have not been found guilty of their liberty, supporters say the violent nature of child rape and other sexual offenses, as well as the potential for intimidation of victims, cries out for them to be included in the dangerousness law.
“The unfortunate reality is that there are instances that happen in which really dangerous individuals are still out on our streets,” said state Senator John Velis, who has already proposed a bill that would include sex crimes such as child rape under the dangerousness law. He called the killing a “shocking example” of the need for the change.
“The Commonwealth has their hands tied behind their back,” he said.
His bill remains in committee, where it has been granted an extension through the end of June.