Last modified: Sunday, January 4, 2009 1:48 AM EST Sam Sutter is interviewed by the The Sun Chronicle lasat year (File photo by Martin Gavin) Sutter to defend use of dangerousness law before state's high court SUN CHRONICLE STAFF Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter will go before the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston Monday to argue his innovative use of the state's dangerousness statute in all illegal firearm cases involving a felony is legally valid. Sutter has been pushing to have all such defendants held without bail. The argument before the SJC will center on the cases of Commonwealth vs. Shamusideen Alabi , Commonwealth vs. Thomas Young and Commonwealth vs. Jermaine Rodriguez. In the Alabi case, the defendant was arrested after a motor vehicle stop in Fall River and charged with carrying a loaded 9mm semi-automatic handgun and carrying an illegal firearm with three previous serious felony convictions. Following the District Attorney's Office policy, Sutter moved for a dangerousness hearing in Fall River District Court, where a judge found the defendant was "dangerous" and he was held without bail. The case was transferred to Superior Court, where a judge upheld the dangerous finding. The defendant has since appealed to the SJC. In the Young and Rodriguez cases, Young was arrested following a motor vehicle stop in Taunton and charged with carrying a loaded Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. Rodriguez also was arrested in Taunton following a motor vehicle stop and charged with possession of a large capacity firearm. Sutter moved to have Young and Rodriguez in Superior Court deemed dangerous and held without bail, but a judge denied those requests. Sutter appealed, contending the judge erroneously ruled carrying a loaded firearm is not inherently dangerous, according to the statute. The overriding issue in both cases, however, will be whether carrying a loaded firearm without a license by its nature presents a substantial risk that physical force against another will result, Sutter said. The district attorney has constantly asserted, in view of the dozens of illegal firearm-related fatalities each year in Massachusetts, the Legislature unquestionably intended the statute to cover this crime. "I've been looking forward to this day for a long time. I believe that the Supreme Judicial Court is going to rule that my interpretation that the dangerousness statute encompasses the crime of carrying an illegal loaded firearm is a valid one," Sutter said. Since instituting the dangerousness hearing policy immediately after he was sworn into office two years ago, Sutter's prosecutors have triumphed in 141 of the 197 illegal-firearm related dangerousness hearings held in the county's four district courts. Bristol County has seen a corresponding decline in illegal gun violence, Sutter added. Taunton saw its "shots-fired" calls decrease from 118 in 2006 to 86 in 2007, and the Taunton Police Department reported 84 "shots-fired" calls though Dec. 30, 2008.