Anthony Dew believed his fate had been sealed after pleading guilty to 19 criminal charges in 2016.  

Dew, a Black Muslim Dorchester native, underwent trial for the charges of assault and battery, rape, human trafficking and drug possession with the intent to distribute. At the time, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts appointed Attorney Richard Doyle to represent Dew. Upon pleading guilty Dew was sentenced to eight-10 years in prison, followed by coinciding seven-year terms of probation after his incarceration.  

It wasn’t until Dew was nearly halfway into his sentence, in 2021, that a family member informed him that Doyle was a “virulent racist” according to court documents, posting racist and Islamophobic memes on Facebook prior to, during and after Dew’s trial. Doyle is now deceased. 

The Facebook posts included graphic images with racist and anti-Muslim commentary, with quotes like “Dear Muslims…Kiss our big bacon balls.”  Other posts included photos of Black men wearing Trump merchandise with the caption “5 minutes after Trump legalizes weed in all 50 states,” and personal commentary by Doyle in which he used the Facebook check-in feature at the Suffolk County Court and wrote “Assorted thugs and bad guys.” Doyle went as far as to make jokes about murdering Black and Muslim individuals.

Dew, now the plaintiff, seeks to vacate his convictions by filing for a new trial on the grounds of racial and religious bias. He is represented by Edward Gaffney, an attorney at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and a member of the Board of Bar Overseers. Dew’s original motion for a new trial has been denied, and he is now in the process of appealing that decision.  

“Racial bias is a “familiar and recurring evil that, if left unaddressed, risks systemic injury to the administration of justice,” said Gaffney in a brief filed in July 2021 at the Suffolk County Superior Court. “See Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017).” 

Dew is not alone in claiming to experience racial bias in the courtroom, nor is he the first to use it in an attempt to withdraw guilty pleas.  

Brockton-based Frances Y. Choy was convicted for arson and first-degree murder in 2011 and was serving a life sentence for allegedly killing her parents in a house fire at their Brockton home in 2003.Choy maintained her innocence, and in 2015 she filed a motion for discovery and to preserve evidence. In doing so, the court appointed attorney John Barter to Choy’s case. Barter, with the help of Boston College’s Innocence Program, uncovered a string of racist emails in an old case file between Karen O’Sullivan and John Bradley, two Plymouth County assistant district attorneys involved in prosecuting Choy. 

A motion filed on September 2020 explains that the emails included racist jokes about Asian people, photographs that depicted Asian people in a demeaning way, vulgar commentary about Choy, commentary about Choy’s family “doing origami in the back of the courtroom” and an allegedly Photoshop edited image of Choy standing in front of a burning house.  

“The legal system doesn't do a great job at reviewing mistakes after the fact,” said Dan Urman, a former criminal prosecutor for the Commonwealth and current law professor at Northeastern University. “It is not particularly well-suited for dealing with biased attorneys.” Because of this, matters are often left to the hands of those convicted.  

After serving 17 years in prison, Plymouth Superior Court judge Linda Giles granted the motion to vacate Choy’s conviction, therefore exonerating her.  

In Dew’s case, prosecutors argue that his argument doesn’t meet the bar. They believe defense attorneys can set aside their bias in professional settings. “The argument was put forth by the Commonwealth that they acknowledged that the Facebook posts establish that he was a racist and an anti-Muslim bigot,” said Gaffney. “But their position was … the record of the case essentially did not demonstrate that his racism affected his performance in any way.” 

Patricia Williams, a law professor at Northeastern University with a background in ethics, race and religion, explains that when it comes to a lawyer representing a client, it's a fiduciary relationship whose professional obligations are not solely about freedom of expression.  

“If the racist and Islamophobic memes could be construed to demean that particular client's identity, there might be some issue of conflict of interest,” said Williams. “New technologies have complicated these lines, as more and more "professionals" use outlets like Twitter or Facebook that they treat as private but are anything but,” she added.  

Similarly, Urman added “I think we all have tons of biases, but I don't think we are all aware of the ways that they can creep into our professional work,” he said. “I am guessing that implicitly and explicitly the lawyer might have actually not worked as hard on this. But I think that that argument is maybe a little bit too favorable to the deceased attorney.” 

Urman compared the issue to working in the medical field. He posed the scenario of a doctor who hates Jewish people – but despite that hatred, the doctor would still go on with an operation. He compared it to Doyle, who verbally established his hatred towards Muslims, but continued to represent Dew. “Is [representing someone from a group you hate] possible? Yes, but I think the larger message that it sends is so problematic because it sends a larger message that our legal system tolerates such bigotry. And that to me, that's a problem.” 

Further, the Commonwealth argues that Dew’s motion for a new trial only occurred when he learned about the memes, implying that Dew was not aware of any racial bias during the time of the trial.  

The same originally occurred for Ezzard Ellis, a California man sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 1989 on the charges of murder, attempted murder and robbery. Ellis, a Black man, was represented by Donald Ames, a court-appointed attorney. Much like Dew, Ellis found out years into his sentence that his former lawyer was also a “virulent racist.”Also like Dew, he discovered that after the attorney was already deceased. According to a court case filed January 15, 2020 at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California. Ames “openly and repeatedly expressed contempt for people who look like Ellis based on the ugliest of racial stereotypes.”  

In fact, Ellis didn’t know of Ames’ alleged racist behavior until it was discussed in an article published in the LA Weekly about how federal judges believed Ames to be a racist. The article also stated that Ames’ daughters had testified against him in a federal court, insisting their father constantly made racist remarks toward his clients.  

Ames’ proven racist behavior resulted in two death sentences being overturned for some of his previous Black clients. As stated in the court file, one of Ames’ daughters testified that she recalled her father saying that Melvin Wade, one of the Black clients mentioned, “got what he deserved” and used a racial slur to describe him when Wade was given the death sentence.

Prosecutors argued that because Ellis was unaware of Ames’ racism at the time of the trial, there was no evidence that the lawyer had been prejudiced against his client – supporting the claim that attorneys can put personal biases aside. 

“Attorneys who get cases from the state have to go through lots of training, including bias training, implicit bias training and things like that,” said Caleb Koufman, a former public defender who currently works as a legal consultant, trial attorney and is a bar advocate for the state of Massachusetts. “I would say everybody has implicit biases, obviously, and you have to put them aside when you walk in a courtroom. That's what we're trained to do.”  

In 2020, Ellis’ case was revised by Circuit Judge Jacqueline Nguyen who granted Ellis a new trial. According to the court file, Nguyen stated that Ames “allowed his repugnant views to infect his professional life—African American clients, court personnel and lawyers were “ni***,” and an Asian American judge was a “f**king Jap” who should remember Pearl Harbor.” 

Koufman explains that in cases like this, there has to be evidence to prove that a different attorney could have handled the case better. While the circuit judge allowed for a new trial, she, Chief  Judge Thomas and Judge  Murguia questioned how Ellis’ lawyers will prove the aforementioned, as stated in the court file. Ellis currently awaits trial.  

In Dew’s case, Suffolk County district attorney Paul Linn, the prosecutor representing the Commonwealth, explains that a defense attorney (in this case Doyle) has to represent a defendant even if a motion indicates that, as a matter of fact, that person is guilty of rape. 

“If a defense attorney can do that and we expect them to, they can also put aside their more broad feelings about society, including racism or any kind of bigotry,” he said.  

Linn believes that cases like Dew’s could pose risks in the future, motivating other convicted felons to exploit important issues such as racial bias or bigotry as loopholes in their cases.  

As for the future of Dew’s appeal, Linn believes that aside from focusing on the conflicts of interest caused by the Facebook memes, Dew’s representation will highlight moments in which Doyle displayed hatred toward a traditional Muslim garment.  

According to Linn and supported by court documents, Doyle demanded Dew remove his kufi, a head covering often worn by Muslims. Doyle allegedly told Dew to “not wear that shit in the courtroom.” Also, the next time Dew wore the garment, Doyle simply walked off without any conversation between them. Linn senses that focusing on this will be the next step for Dew and his lawyers.

According to Linn and supported by court documents, Doyle demanded Dew remove his kufi, a head covering often worn by Muslims. According to the court file, Doyle allegedly told Dew to “not wear that shit in the courtroom.” During a second instance in which Dew wore the kufi, Doyle walked off without addressing his client. Linn senses that focusing on these prior incidents will be the next step for Dew and his lawyers.

The prevalence of racial bias in the courtroom could put the future of the legal system into question, experts say. The debate of whether bias can affect a trial or not is overshadowed by the bigotry often protected by courts and legal agendas, regardless of conviction.  

“Racism is a grave threat to our society. Grave,” said Gaffney, Dew’s new attorney. I think that it is a very, very significant and powerful force in our current world, especially in the United States. It's really important for us as a society to address it with a serious intent, energy and focus.”