A justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling Tuesday vacating the conviction of Osman Bilal, a Somali immigrant who pleaded guilty to a shoplifting charge in 2011, a conviction that impeded attempts to renew his residency potentially leading to his deportation.

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins addressed the case on Greater Boston Tuesday with host Jim Braude.

"This individual committed a misdemeanor crime nine years ago," she said. "It was larceny under $250. ... Normal people call that shoplifting. No one is saying that is a good thing.

"He was 19 when he did it," she continued. "He's rehabilitated. He's working. ... I believe the extreme collateral consequence of him [being] sent to Somalia, some place he spent 48 hours in 28 years ago, is something I couldn't sit by and allow to happen."

When asked whether there were some crimes that should lead to deportation, she answered yes.

"I've been asked for a rapist, for example, an individual who was found guilty of rape, served their time and is now going to be deported," she said. "There are immigration consequences as a result of that behavior. And I said, 'No, we are not going to step in.' That individual is gonna be removed back to the country of his origin because of the seriousness the crime."

Bilal was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for stealing two necklace chains from a man selling jewelry at the Downtown Crossing MBTA station and threatening his accuser.

Though charged with larceny and a felony of intimidating a witness, he accepted a plea deal to drop the felony charge.

On Nov. 15, Rollins' general counsel Donna Jalbert Patalano and Bilal's newly appointed counsel, Kelly Cusack, went before Judge Michael Coyne in Boston Municipal Court and filed a motion for nolle prosequi, which dismissed the case.

That set the stage for the SJC to take up the case. Justice David Lowy ruled in Bilal's favor.

Rollins added that she is proud of her office's work on Bilal's case and that she hopes it starts a conversation around reform.

"I think many of them were still looking at all of these issues. Bilal happens to be the one that's percolated up," she said. "But there are hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, ... of collateral consequences that have nothing to do with immigration.

"I just want people talking about this."