Braintree Man Gets Retrial On 'Sexually Dangerous' Designation

BOSTON, MA — A new trial was called for Wednesday for a Braintree man found to be considered dangerous by a jury. The state's appeals court will oversee the new trial.

In 2014, Robert Spring Jr. was convicted for possessing child pornography. He's also been convicted of several sexual assaults in the '80s and '90s. Spring is now appealing the court decision that would require him to be civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person.

According to Massachusetts state law, people deemed sexually dangerous by a judge or jury can be indefinitely committed at a treatment facility.

Spring’s attorney David Hirsch argued that Spring had inadequate counsel in the civil commitment trial, the Patriot Ledger reported. Justice Marry Sullivan wrote to the appeal's court that Spring's attorney should have asked the judge on the original trial to provide different criteria for defining what a "sexually dangerous person" is.

“The instruction given permitted the jury to find the defendant a sexually dangerous person under circumstances that do not meet the statutory definition of a "sexually dangerous person", as interpreted by the Supreme Judicial Court,” Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan wrote that the jury wasn't instructed that believing someone would view child pornography again isn't enough to find someone to be a sexually dangerous person worthy of committing. In order to do so, the non contact offense would have to make victims have a reasonable belief they will be assaulted again.

Massachusetts law doesn't require a person to commit a sexual offense that involves contact with a victim for civil commitment; it only requires reasonable fear they will do so to a victim in the future.

Norfolk County District Attorney’s spokesman David Traub told the Patriot Ledger they will still try to have Spring civilly committed when the case comes back to superior court

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