Officials did not release the name of the man who was killed or disclose a potential motive for the killing.
In an email to the Globe, Tumposky asserted his client’s innocence.
“Javonte Robinson denies that he committed any crime and looks forward to his day in court,” Tumposky said Monday night.
“His previous case was dismissed because the SJC has correctly said that defendants cannot be prosecuted if they do not have a lawyer available to represent them,” Tumposky’s said.
He faulted the state for the lawyer shortage.
“The parties solely responsible for the shortage of attorneys are the folks on Beacon Hill who have refused to allocate sufficient funds to pay those who fight to protect a critical and constitutionally guaranteed right, the right to a zealous defense,” he continued. “More defendants will be released and more cases will be dismissed until our elected officials take appropriate action to resolve this crisis.”
On Oct. 25, Robinson appeared in the samecourthouse, where Chief Justice Tracy-Lee Lyons dismissed charges of carrying a dangerous weapon and possession of Class A drugs, court records show.
The dismissal was another example of the impact the ongoing work stoppage by defense lawyers for increased pay is having on the justice system.
In her ruling, Lyons wrote that the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state’s public defender agency, could not find a lawyer. She ordered charges dismissed under the so-called Lavallee protocol but left the door open for prosecutors to refile them, according to court records.
The Lavallee protocol was created this summer by the Supreme Judicial Court in response to the work stoppage. The protocol requires judges to release people held in custody for more than seven days without a lawyer and to dismiss cases where defendants have gone more than 45 days without an attorney.
While Suffolk District Attorney Kevin R. Hayden’s office filed paperwork on Oct. 29 seeking reinstatement of the charges against Robinson, no action has been taken on that request, records show.
Last month’s dismissal was the second time this year that Robinson was the beneficiary of judicial rulings. In January, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Keren Goldenbergcq blocked prosecutors from using a gun and drugs that police seized as evidence when they arrested Robinson in Mattapan Square on June 5, 2022.
In her ruling, Goldenberg said police saw Robinson leave the CVS in Mattapan Square, where he was joined by a woman and a man known to police as a substance abuser. Robinson allegedly dropped a white object that was picked up by the woman.
Officers stopped Robinson for what they believed was a drug transaction and found he was carrying a handgun in a fanny pack, suspected heroin, and $728 in cash, the judge wrote.
But in a nine-page decision, Goldenberg said that police had racially profiled Robinson and had not established a legally valid reason to stop him.
“Robinson’s assertion that he was not with the [woman and man] and evident desire to avoid further questioning is understandable when a Black man is approached by the BPD for questioning” Goldenberg wrote. “Because ‘black males in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for [investigatory] encounters, a Black man, ‘approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity.’”
Prosecutors considered appealing her decision, but decided it could not win and withdrew all charges “in the interest of justice” in February, records show.
“Because the Commonwealth cannot meet its evidentiary burden at trial with the suppression of the evidence, the Commonwealth” dropped all charges, prosecutors wrote.
Robinson has previously been convicted on drug charges in US District Court in Boston and was released from federal prison in 2023, records show.’
Tonya Alanez of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
This story has been updated.
John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.
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