Former Belknap County sheriff’s deputy Ernest Justin Blanchette has targeted a potential legal loophole to contest his rape conviction last month and try to get his remaining charges dismissed.
In a hearing Tuesday in Laconia, Blanchette’s attorney, Brad Davis, argued that charges in four pending cases should be dismissed because Blanchette didn’t technically work for the Department of Corrections, he worked for the sheriff’s office, and the law draws a distinction.
Blanchette, 36, was convicted of coercing an inmate into sex while transporting her to the women’s prison in Goffstown and remains accused of engaging in similar behavior with other inmates in Belknap County. He has never denied having sex with the first woman, but said it was consensual – a claim the woman backed under oath.
Davis first raised the employment argument at trial last month in Manchester. He noted that state law technically defines a rape through coercion as occurring when a defendant has direct supervision over the victim and the victim is incarcerated in a correctional facility “where the actor is employed.” Because Blanchette was “employed” by the county sheriff, rather than the prison, he should be exempted from the law, his lawyer argued.
But Judge Gillian Abramson denied the request, and later elaborated in a written order, saying lawmakers unequivocally intended the statute to apply to anyone with “direct authority” of an inmate “at that time.” To interpret it otherwise, she wrote, “would be directly contrary to the underlying purpose of the statute.”
“Moreover,” Abramson said, “it would create an untenable loophole under which inmates, despite being protected from the coercive acts of those with authority inside the walls of a penal institution, are subject without restraint to the coercive acts of those delegated with similar authority outside of the walls.”
Earlier this month, Davis asked that the decision be revisited, arguing again that the language of the law is “unambiguous.”
“If the legislature had intended that any officer who has direct supervisory or disciplinary authority over an inmate could be charged under this statute, they would have stated so by simply eliminating the phrase ‘where the actor is employed,’ ” he wrote.
According to Abramson’s ruling, lawmakers added the phrase in 2003 after a state senator voiced concern that omitting it could potentially open a correctional officer to unfair prosecution. An officer, for example, who is employed in one county and who travels off-duty to another, meets an inmate there on work release and engages in consensual sexual contact.
Then-Assistant Attorney General Ann Rice proposed adding the phrase in response. (She is now the deputy attorney general.)
Abramson has yet to rule on Davis’s request to reconsider, but, whatever her decision, the matter is likely to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Until then, no decision is expected on the remaining four cases. Judge James Carroll said Tuesday that he wants to wait and see if and how the high court weighs in.
(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)