Attorney Patrick Levin argued before the court that a defendant who is detained “for want of bail” and awaiting trial is not “on release” for purposes of the Commonwealth’s bail-revocation statute. “Someone who's incarcerated is not on release,” Levin told the justices, urging reversal of a single justice’s decision and asking the court to vacate the bail-revocation entry from Dante Lewis’s record.

The issue, Levin said, turns on the plain language of the statute and customary usage: admission to bail, Levin argued, occurs when a defendant is actually released into the custody of a surety, not merely when a judge sets bail or provides the oral warning. He cited habeas-related language in the statutes to say that “he's not bailed until he posts the bail, and he's released.” Levin also noted that the bail revocation order at issue expired a year earlier and described the case as effectively moot for this defendant, while asking the court to vacate the record because the revocation remains on Lewis’s record.

Representing the Commonwealth, Attorney Brynn Morse countered that the operative bail warning in this case — as given at the first hearing — tracked the statutory language. “You are hereby advised that if you are charged with a crime during the period of your release on bail, your bail in this case may be revoked, etcetera,” Morse quoted, and she argued that the statute’s text and structure equate the term release with the statutory phrase “admitted to bail” and with the moment the oral warning is given. On that reading, Morse said, a defendant is on notice from the time bail is set (or the court gives the warning) that committing a crime during the pendency of the case may support revocation.

Morse told the court the revocation statute serves a preventive purpose: it allows the court to address ongoing danger posed by a defendant who commits crimes while proceedings are pending. She argued the statutory scheme permits the judge to consider continued criminal conduct when deciding whether to revoke bail or order consecutive sentences, and that the legislature would not have intended a loophole allowing an individual to assault others in custody and avoid the revocation remedy simply because the assault occurred before the defendant was physically released.

Both sides debated interpretive tools. Levin urged a strict reading and invoked the rule of lenity for criminal statutes, arguing that depriving liberty requires a clear legislative statement. Morse responded that the rule of lenity applies only where no reasonable reading exists and that a reading consistent with the statute’s structure and purpose is available here.

Justices questioned practical consequences and statutory context. One justice noted the underlying eviction of the bail revocation — asking what would change for the defendant if the court agreed with Levin — and Levin acknowledged there would be no practical effect on custody because the revocation had expired, but said vacating the revocation entry was important for the record. Another justice pressed whether the Commonwealth failed to notify the judge who later reduced bail about the alleged in-custody offense.

No decision was announced at argument. Counsel for the Commonwealth asked the court to affirm; defense counsel asked the court to reverse and vacate the revocation entry. The case concerns statutory interpretation of when a defendant is “on release” and whether the bail-revocation remedy applies when an alleged new offense occurs while the defendant remains in custody pending trial.

The transcript shows argument focused narrowly on statutory language, the text of the oral warning, and the remedial purpose of the revocation rule; it does not record a final ruling from the court.