Retired judge defends 2021 sentence of accused Memorial Drive gunman: "Not a failure of the justice system"

A retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge says the sentence given to Tyler Brown after a 2020 shootout with Boston Police was not a failure of the justice system, despite renewed scrutiny following Monday's shooting on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

"It was not a failure of the justice system, it was the proper functioning of the justice system," retired Judge Jack Lu told WBZ News.

Lu, the former chair of the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission, defended the sentence handed down by now-retired Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders, saying it fell within sentencing guidelines.

"The judge doesn't have a crystal ball. The judge doesn't have extra sensory perception. The judge does not have ESP," Lu said. "The judge has to do what's fair to everybody."

At the time prosecutors had sought a 10 to 12-year prison sentence for Brown, who pleaded guilty to eight charges including armed assault with intent to murder and attempted assault and battery by means of discharging a firearm for firing at a Boston Police officer.

Instead, Sanders sentenced him five to six years in state prison followed by probation that included mental health treatment.

Rachael Rollins, who was the Suffolk County District Attorney at the time, said she was "disappointed" by the sentence.

"I strongly believe that the sentence we proposed - 10 to 12 years followed by five years of probation - was appropriate for the level of brazen violence committed. Of equal concern is the imposition of concurrent sentences for a prior and separate violent assault on a different member of our community," Rollins said in August 2021.

In an interview with WBZ News on Tuesday, Rollins said, "what the judge did was double harm."

Brown ended up serving about three-and-a-half years in prison after his sentencing date. He was released from prison on May 21, 2025.

"The judge had I believe, a 42-year-old man with a demonstrated, documented mental health history. So, this is not an intervention," Lu said. "The judge sentenced this individual to five to six years in state prison with probation with a significant mental health treatment component. That's a fair decision; that's a just decision. That's justice. Justice is not just to adopt whatever the prosecutor says, or really, whatever the police say."

Lu said the larger issue may have been failures in mental health treatment after Brown completed his sentence.

Before Monday's shooting in Cambridge, Brown allegedly made suicidal statements to his parole officer and waved a rifle during a FaceTime call while saying he intended to use it. He was released from a psychiatric hospital just days earlier, court paperwork shows.

"After the defendant served his sentence, there likely were mental health failures by the system, perhaps for a lack of funding," Lu said. "But those are not the responsibility of the sentencing judge."

"Judges can't solve all the problems of society," he added. "And locking everybody up forever is not the answer."

WBZ tried to contact Judge Janet Sanders for a comment but was unable to reach her.