Chism lawyer wants some Boston charges Tossed
By Julie Manganis | Salem News | October 19, 2017BOSTON — More than three years after he allegedly attacked a Department of Youth Services employee inside a restroom, Philip Chism's lawyers are asking a Suffolk Juvenile Court judge to dismiss some of the charges.
The move comes after efforts to resolve the case short of trial apparently broke down earlier this year.
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While awaiting trial at a DYS detention center in Dorchester, prosecutors say, Chism attacked a second young woman, a staff member, in what one has called a "chillingly" similar attack, on June 2, 2014.
Chism is still facing charges of attempted murder by strangulation, assault with intent to murder, kidnapping and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a wall and a pencil.
Some new details of that crime emerged Thursday during a hearing on a motion to dismiss two of the charges.
Chism's lawyer, John Osler, referred to some of those details in his argument, as a means of suggesting that the testimony of witnesses — including the victim and another employee who went to her aid — did not support the charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors have described during prior proceedings how Chism, holding a sharpened pencil, allegedly crouched below a wall to follow the worker as she headed to the restroom/locker room area.
When the worker pulled the door open to leave the tiny restroom, Chism suddenly appeared in the doorway and put his hands around her throat, forcing her back toward a wall, according to the testimony cited by Osler.
The victim recalled that she was able to get one of Chism's hands off her neck, and that she heard her own screams get louder as a result. Within seconds, another worker arrived and saw Chism holding the woman against the wall by her throat with one hand as he punched her with the other.
That worker was able to knock Chism off balance so that he fell.
Nowhere in that description, argued Osler, was an indication of Chism stabbing the woman with the pencil.
And, he argued, the wall cannot be considered a dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors David Bradley and Mark Zanini disagreed.
Bradley argued it was reasonable for the grand jury to infer that the hole in the worker's blouse and the scratched skin beneath were caused by Chism because she did not have any injury when she entered the restroom.
And as for the wall, Bradley argued, it became a weapon when Chism shoved her against it.
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