Commonwealth v. Fusi (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-008-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 16-P-1710 Appeals Court COMMONWEALTH vs. ALFRED P. FUSI. No. 16-P-1710. February 1, 2017. Sex Offender. Practice, Civil, Sex offender. Evidence, Sex offender, Expert opinion. Probable Cause. After a hearing at which expert witnesses engaged by the Commonwealth and the defendant offered conflicting opinions concerning the defendant’s sexual dangerousness, a judge of the Superior Court concluded that the Commonwealth had not established probable cause to believe the defendant is sexually dangerous, dismissed the Commonwealth’s petition seeking his commitment as a sexually dangerous person pursuant to G. L. c. 123A, § 12, and ordered him released from custody.[1] Though the judge applied the correct legal standard to the determination of probable cause, his conclusion that the evidence did not establish probable cause was in error, and therefore we reverse. At a probable cause hearing conducted pursuant to G. L. c. 123A, § 12(c), the judge is to conduct “a two-part inquiry, one quantitative and the other qualitative. ‘The judge must be satisfied, first, that the Commonwealth’s admissible evidence, if believed, satisfie[s] all of the elements of proof necessary to prove the Commonwealth’s case. Second, she must be satisfied that the evidence on each of the elements is not so incredible, insubstantial, or otherwise of such a quality that no reasonable person could rely on it to conclude that the Commonwealth had met its burden of proof.’” Commonwealth v. Reese, 438 Mass. 519, 524 (2003), quoting from Commonwealth v. Blanchette, 54 Mass. App. Ct. 165, 175 (2002). At issue in this appeal is whether the Commonwealth’s evidence satisfied the second, qualitative, prong of the Blanchette test.[2] The defendant was convicted of two rapes of young women, both strangers, that he committed in 1980 and 1981, when he was nineteen and twenty years of age, respectively. The second of the two rapes occurred while he was released on bail awaiting his trial for the first. In addition to those convictions, the defendant was charged with open and gross lewdness in 1981, and indecent exposure in 1982, while both rape charges were pending.[3] While incarcerated, he was disciplined on several occasions, including for an incident in 1996 in which he drew five drawings of a female correction officer including some portraying her in the nude; two of the drawings were described as “quite explicit,” and notes written on the backs of two […]