My good friend Chaya Raichik — OK, OK, she has no idea who I am, bit I follow her on Twitter, posted:

Ryan Evans was charged with assault to r*pe a child in 2021. He was let free and sentenced to house arrest, awaiting trial. 3 months ago a judge loosened his curfew.

Now he was arrested again for luring a 5-year-old child behind a restroom and attempting to r*pe him.

Why does our justice system let violent child pr*dat*rs back onto the street to continue t*rr*rizing communities?

Naturally, the responses to Miss Raichik were almost uniformly supportive, but mine was different, and I would imagine it will be unpopular. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution specified that the accused have a right to a reasonable bail amount, meaning a bail that they can reasonably make, while the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy trial.

Mr Evans was charged with horribly serious crimes, crimes which, to me, merit life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted, but that’s the point: he has not actually been convicted of anything yet. The judge in his previous case granted him bail, which he made, but put him on house arrest, complete with the requirement to wear a GPS ankle monitor. I can see the merit in that, but Mr Evena has been awaiting trial for three years now.

From the Boston Herald:

Man charged in alleged sex assault of child, 5, on Cape Cod held for dangerousness hearing

by Lance Reynolds | Thursday, July 11, 2024 | 7:02 PM EDT

A 27-year-old man born in Jamaica is set to face a dangerousness hearing on Cape Cod after he allegedly tried to sexually assault a 5-year-old child at a local park earlier this week, according to authorities.

Ryan Evans, of South Yarmouth, pleaded not guilty to charges of assault to rape a child, kidnapping of a child and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in connection to the Tuesday evening incident at Yarmouth’s Peter Homer Park.

A clinician was set to evaluate Evans, who Yarmouth Police said they have a history with, later Thursday to determine his competency. Prosecutors asked for a dangerousness hearing during a morning arraignment at Barnstable District Court.

It took nearly 24 hours for police to capture Evans.

A report of a man, later identified as Evans, attempting to sexually assault a 5-year-old child prompted Yarmouth Police to respond to Peter Homer Park shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“While at a soccer game on the fields, the unknown man lured the child behind the park’s restrooms where the attempt took place,” a release states. “The child’s screams managed to scare off the suspect and he fled the area.”

There’s more at the original. I also went through several other credentialed media stories on this, and you know what I didn’t find? I didn’t find any explanation as to why Mr Evens had not already been brought to trial. Was the long delay due to the Commonwealth, or were motions from Mr Evans’ attorney the cause? If Mr Evans and his attorney were the ones who have put the trial off for three years, then his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial has been waived.

But we’ve seen all sorts of delays not by the defense, but by the states, states all across the nation, using Covidiocy as their excuse, and backed-up courts have kept trials delayed for years. Some states have laws which deny bail to suspects charged with murder, but Mr Evans was not charged with murder.

Evans is awaiting trial in that case and has been ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device, according to court records. A judge in April loosened a curfew from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

A defense attorney was almost certainly involved in that, but it isn’t a delaying move.

Evans was born in Jamaica and did not complete school there before moving to the U.S. in 2019, his mother Beverly Evans told the Cape Cod Times following the 2021 incident. Her son was “diagnosed with an intellectual disability at 13 and has the mind of a 15-year-old,” she told the newspaper.

None of the sources told us whether the Evans family were in the United States legally.

If they were here legally, there’s nothing that can be done about that, but Boston specifically, and Massachusetts in general do not cooperate with the feds on immigration issues. If they were here illegally, they could have been deported back to Jamaica, but only if Immigration and Customs Enforcement knew they were here.

So, now what happens? Perhaps a ‘dangerousness hearing’ will get Mr Evans locked up, but he still needs to be brought to trial; legally, he’s still not guilty of anything, and we can’t just imprison people for years without a conviction.

Yes, child molesters are hugely dangerous people, but we can’t just keep them locked up unless we’ve actually tried and convicted them of a crime.