More criminal defendants without representation were released from custody on Wednesday — including one facing charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon — as state courts prepare for an onslaught of cases that could be dropped entirely for lack of defense attorneys.

Lowell District Court First Justice John Coffey oversaw 10 cases Wednesday in which defendants had been held for more than a week without legal representation.

There are hundreds of such defendants across Middlesex and Suffolk counties amid an ongoing work stoppage by “bar advocates” — private attorneys who take on court-appointed defense roles in criminal matters, and who have traditionally represented 80% of indigent defendants.

Since the state’s Supreme Judicial Court ordered last week that defendants without representation were to be released under what’s known as the Lavallee Protocol, Coffey had no choice but to let some of them out of detention with only conditions to keep them in line.

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Thursday marks the 45th day after defendants were first arraigned after the work stoppage. According to the Protocol, those defendants can have their cases dismissed. But according to several sources at the courthouse, such hearings aren’t scheduled until later in this month.

The situation

“Unfortunately I can only deal with what’s before me and I know that it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better,” Coffey said.

It was in response to Rebecca Jacobstein, a salaried staff defense attorney at the state Committee for Public Counsel Services, an agency that oversees the bar advocate program and whose staff attorneys defend the remaining 20% of defense cases.

CPCS was represented in court by Jacobstein and Adam Narris, who said he usually works out of the western part of the state but came over to help out with the crisis around Boston.

The pair argued to Judge Coffey that the unrepresented defendants need to be “triaged,” and that CPCS should take on only the cases that represent the most potential danger to the public before reaching their “cap” for cases.

“We hate the word ‘triage,’ but yes, that’s what we’re proposing,” Jacobstein said, speaking specifically during the hearing for defendant Jason Fortunado, who faces assault and battery charges out of Chelsea District Court, but was making the argument broadly.

“What I am telling the court today is that we cannot find proper counsel for him, we could take the case but we would be capped by the end of the week,” Jacobstein said. She added that her office has already taken on a significant number of cases over their usual capacity and that “it’s an enormous amount of work to onboard a new case.”

Narris added that over the next few days there will be “heavy-duty cases” on the docket and he warned against CPCS overloading their capacity on lesser cases and not being able to take on the most serious ones, which could come later.

But Coffey ordered CPCS to take on Fortunado’s case, meaning the defendant stays in custody for now.

“It pains me that we even have to have these hearings,” Coffey said, “but someone has to be the bad guy.”

Released

Coffey oversaw 10 cases Wednesday, a mix between those that originated in his court and those from Chelsea District Court, which is in Suffolk and not Middlesex County, but was heard in Lowell because it’s the only district court in the county outside of the Boston Municipal Court System that’s having its own Lavallee Protocol hearings.

It’s hard to say definitively who was “released” following the hearings, because even if Coffey cleared detention orders in the district court level cases, many of the defendants had warrants out of counties not affected by the Protocol order or from superior courts — in which case their detention on those matters remained. Bar advocates at the superior court level are not participating in the work stoppage.

One person released was Joshua Sullivan, 45, of Chelsea, who was charged in Chelsea District Court on July 1 with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, receiving stolen property, and armed robbery. Judge Stuart Hurowitz had ordered him held in lieu of $1,500 bail. He was released to home detention and GPS monitoring on Wednesday.

Suffolk County prosecutors say Sullivan was cutting down posters that bear his likeness at area businesses and attempted to stab a person who confronted him. The target then said he punched Sullivan in the face and chased him down the street. Sullivan allegedly stabbed the person in a second altercation.

In all, four people were released from custody. Coffey assigned to CPCS some prominent cases, like that of Akram Elmoukhtari, an 18-year-old Revere resident accused of a hit-and-run crash on Revere Beach that left a State Police lieutenant critically injured.

Attorney Rebecca Jacobstein speaks as defendants have their cases reviewed for the Lavalle Protocol. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Judge John Coffey speaks as defendants have their cases reviewed for the Lavalle Protocol. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)