The court has placed an avowed Bennington white nationalist under house arrest, citing public safety in granting the state’s request the second time around.
The Bennington Superior Court on Monday ordered Max Misch, 38, to remain at home for 22 hours each day until otherwise directed. The curfew will be strictly implemented starting on Saturday, when Misch is scheduled to move from a shelter to a new apartment in Bennington.
Echoing the prosecutor’s reasons for the latest curfew request, Judge Cortland Corsones said it’s a means to protect the public, given Misch’s mounting criminal cases.
Since he was charged with illegally possessing high-capacity firearm magazines in February 2019, Misch has been charged in eight other cases in Bennington County. They encompass 13 charges, including felony counts of aggravated domestic assault and obstruction of justice.
“He is accumulating charges at an alarming rate,” Corsones said in a written order on Monday. The judge underscored that Misch’s three charges of disorderly conduct and four charges of violating release conditions all allegedly happened in public.
“A curfew is necessary, at this time, to limit the defendant’s contact with the public — to protect the public,” Corsones said.
Misch’s curfew — from 2 p.m. till noon every day — will also protect the complainant in the felony charges, the judge said.
Since Misch will be living alone at his new apartment, the court allowed him a window of two hours in which to shop for food and other necessities. The court said it also will include exceptions for court hearings, meetings with his attorney, medical appointments, counseling and medical emergencies.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which requested the curfew on the magazine case, had asked for round-the-clock home confinement. Nevertheless, it welcomed this week’s court order.
“We are pleased that the judge agreed that restrictions are needed to protect the public as we continue to move forward with our prosecution of this case,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Misch’s defense attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Misch declined to comment.
While Misch is staying at a shelter, Corsones said he should observe the curfew to the extent allowed by the residence. Some shelters don’t allow residents to remain on the premises the whole day.
This was the second time that the Attorney General’s Office asked the court to place Misch on 24/7 home detention. Corsones denied the initial request, made in July, saying no threat existed that would justify such a restriction.
Since then, Misch has been charged with another count of disorderly conduct as a hate crime after he allegedly got into an argument with a woman when he reportedly used a racial slur against her Black son and another teenage boy.
This was followed by his newest charge, obstruction of justice, for allegedly seeking to
influence or intimidate a witness into changing her testimony in Misch’s domestic violence case.
Last month, the Attorney General’s Office had asked the court to consider home detention if it ruled out revoking Misch’s bail, which would have meant putting him in jail.
Corsones denied withholding bail, saying the prosecution hadn’t been able to prove that Misch constituted a threat to the judicial system by intimidating or endangering a witness.
“Our constitutional values require that liberty is and must remain the norm and ‘detention prior to trial or without trial is the carefully limited exception,’ ” Corsones wrote, citing case precedent. Revoking the right to bail, he said, should be limited to special circumstances in which the state’s interest is “legitimate and compelling.”
The 22-hour curfew has now been added to Misch’s existing conditions of release, which include not possessing or using firearms, as well as not having contact with former Bennington state Rep. Kiah Morris.
Morris had been the only Black woman in the state Legislature when she decided to resign in the summer of 2018, citing racial harassment as a reason. Misch had admitted to racially harassing her.
Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan investigated the matter, but decided not to file criminal charges against Misch or anyone else — pointing to the broad protections of the First Amendment.