A judge has rejected a bid to impose home detention on a white supremacist from Bennington who has racked up several more charges following his arrest more than two years ago for allegedly possessing illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting Max Misch on the magazine charges, argued in court Monday and in a filing late last week that the Bennington man needed to be under a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week curfew at his home.
Judge Cortland Corsones heard arguments on that request Monday during a virtual hearing from Bennington County Superior criminal court, and ruled out an around-the-clock curfew at this time.
“The court is under an obligation to impose the least restrictive condition or combination of conditions which will reasonably protect the public,” Corsones said.
The judge said the latest charges that brought Misch into court last week — two felony charges of aggravated domestic assault and one misdemeanor count of domestic assault — were the result of alleged actions that took place last December 2020.
Corsones said that, when Misch was arraigned on those domestic violence charges last week, he had already been ordered not to contact or harass the woman he is charged with assaulting.
“The court is satisfied that there are conditions in place designed to protect the public,” the judge said.
Assistant Attorney General Ultan Doyle, who is prosecuting the high-capacity magazine case against Misch, told the court that, since those charges were brought in February 2019, the Bennington man has been arrested repeatedly on new offenses, including several counts of violating the conditions of release imposed after his arrest more than two years ago.
“The state’s position is that the current conditions of release are not working,” Doyle told the judge Monday, and placing Misch under house arrest was warranted.
“This is really the only way from the state’s perspective to ensure compliance with these conditions and to protect the public,” the prosecutor said.
Attorney Frederick Bragdon, a public defender representing Misch, told the court his client is not a risk to flee.
“Although my client isn’t employed, your honor, he does get disability from the VA, he’s an honorably discharged veteran,” Bragdon said. “He gets food stamps that helps support himself, he’s lived in the same apartment for five years, he’s resided in Vermont for six years.”
The defense lawyer also challenged the strength of the state’s cases against Misch, and said he plans to seek dismissal of the high-capacity magazine charges against Misch on constitutional grounds.
Earlier this year, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the charges under the state’s constitution, but Bragdon says he plans to argue that the charges violate Second Amendment protections of the U.S. Constitution.
Misch is the first and only person charged under the ban on high-capacity magazines that was signed into law in April 2018.
Since his arraignment on those two charges in February 2019, Misch has repeatedly been charged with violating his conditions of release, including by allegedly contacting a witness and by traveling outside Bennington County to go drinking in New York state.
In addition, last summer Misch was arrested on disorderly conduct charges, including one being prosecuted as a hate crime, where he is accused of shouting racial slurs at a Black man.
Misch has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
