FALL RIVER — When the driver who caused last weekend’s fatal crash on Cape Cod was pulled over in Barnstable on June 3, he reeked of alcohol and didn’t bother trying to deny that he had had too much to drink.
“Way too much,” Mickey A. Rivera told a state trooper, according to a police report. “Drinks man, just drinks. I can tell you’re a good officer. I should have drove safe.”
Rivera’s blood alcohol level registered at 0.19, more than twice the legal limit.
But when the 22-year-old was arraigned the next day on drunken driving charges in Barnstable District Court, neither the circumstances of his arrest nor his extensive criminal past were mentioned at all, court records show.
In a hearing that lasted less than five minutes, Rivera was released without bail at the recommendation of a prosecutor, even though he was free on bail at the time awaiting trial on felony charges in connection with a 2015 killing in Fall River.
On Tuesday, as anger swirled over the circumstances of Rivera’s release, the district attorney in the Fall River case blasted the state probation department for failing to inform him about Rivera’s June arrest, saying prosecutors would have moved to revoke his bail and have him arrested if they had known.
“Clearly this is a case, given the nature of the charges, that should have been brought to the attention of our office,” Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said.
Quinn said the probation department, which was alerted to Rivera’s June arrest, was obligated to notify his office promptly if Rivera committed any new crimes. He said the lapse represented a missed opportunity to return Rivera to jail at any point over the nearly two months before the deadly crash.
“The bottom line is this defendant should not have been out, he should not have been released on bail,” Quinn said. “This isn’t complicated . . . people committing crimes while on release should not be released again and go back out into the community.”
Jennifer Donahue, a spokeswoman for the court system, which includes the probation department, acknowledged that probation officials are required to notify prosecutors when defendants violate the conditions of their release while out on bail.
“Probation should have notified the [Bristol] district attorney, and there is no record of that occurring,” she said. “Probation is reviewing the notification procedure in this case.”
Two years ago, a trial court review called for a slate of reforms aimed at better identifying violent offenders after Auburn police Officer Ronald Tarentino Jr. was gunned down during a traffic stop by Jorge Zambrano, who was on probation at the time. Zambrano was free, despite having been charged with assaulting a police officer and violating his probation by using cocaine.
In June, the court system released a report with extensive recommendations on enhanced enforcement of probation conditions for high risk offenders, Donahue said.
In the 2015 case, District Attorney Quinn had previously criticized Superior Court Judge Thomas McGuire for his decision last September to reduce Rivera’s bail to $1,000 cash, an amount that he was able to post. Until then, he had been held on $35,000 bail for more than two years. Rivera’s lawyers cited a Supreme Judicial Court ruling that required judges set a bail that mirrors a defendant’s financial status.
In that case, Rivera was charged with attempted armed masked robbery and other offenses during a confrontation in which a man was shot to death. He pleaded not guilty.
Quinn said his office only learned about the June arrest after Saturday’s crash, when Rivera led police on a chase that ended in a head-on collision with an SUV driven by Kevin P. Quinn, killing him. Quinn, 32, was returning to his Mashpee home after visiting his wife and newborn daughter in the hospital. Rivera was also killed.
Tuesday brought news of another tragic loss in the crash: A passenger in Rivera’s car, Jocelyn Goyette, 24, died Sunday, her relatives said.
“I loved everything about her,” said Goyette’s fiance, Jorge E. Martell. “She was a strong, independent woman, and she did everything possible to make our son happy and smile.”
Martell and Goyette had a 3-year-old son, Javien.
“She was an incredible mother, incredible,” he said. “I am just trying to do what she would have wanted me to do. Be a father and mother, play both roles for him.”
His voice strained with emotion, Martell said Javien is struggling to understand his mother’s death.
“He asked me a few days ago, he said, ‘Daddy, I want to be with Mommy,’ ” Martell said. “And all I could tell him is that Mommy is with the angels, and if you want to talk to her, you just look up.”
Meanwhile, the father of Kevin P. Quinn said Tuesday that the family was deeply disappointed that Rivera had been released from custody. Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe has acknowledged that the prosecutor mishandled the case by failing to seek bail.
“It’s just wrong,’’ John Quinn said. Rivera “shouldn’t have been out.”
Kevin Quinn, a former Marine, was preparing to bring his wife and newborn daughter home the next day.
“It was supposed to be the happiest day of his life, and it ended up being the most tragic,” John Quinn said. “We’re just so devastated.”
In the June drunken driving case, O’Keefe said the prosecutor, who had been on the job for only one month, had received a report from the probation department indicating that Rivera was on bail for the Fall River case, which had been pending for three years.
O’Keefe said the report raised questions and that a more experienced prosecutor would have delayed Rivera’s hearing to learn more.
“We made a mistake, we should have done better,” O’Keefe said. But even if the prosecutor had requested that Rivera be held in custody, “there’s no guarantee that he would have been,” O’Keefe added.
In the drunken driving arrest, Rivera was spotted trying to drive the wrong way down a section of Main Street in Barnstable where the road is one way, police said. When the trooper ordered him to turn his car around, Rivera complied and started heading toward South Street. As the trooper followed, the car drifted to the right, hit the curb, then drove onto the sidewalk, police said.
Rivera failed multiple field sobriety tests and acknowledged that he was drunk.
“I’m sorry, officer. I drank too much and I’m just trying to get home,’’ Rivera told the trooper, according to the police report. “I know I drank too much tonight but can you please let me just walk home?”
Rivera fell asleep two minutes after he was placed in the cruiser, and was still asleep when they arrived at the Yarmouth barracks, police said.
The next morning, Rivera was polite during the brief hearing, where Judge Kathryn E. Hand warned him that he could be jailed if he violated his bail conditions.
The hearing ended with him eagerly asking the clerk in the courtroom if he could leave.
“All set, Your Honor?” he asks.
“You are all set, sir,’’ the clerk answers, according to a recording of the arraignment.
Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent J.D. Capelouto contributed to this report. Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy
@globe.com. John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.