Here’s a globe editorial from March 24, 1994. It contains a lot of information not being reported here. I’ve highlighted the things I haven’t seen yet in this recent discussion.
When Benjamin Laguer was sentenced in 1984 to life in prison for raping a Leominster neighbor, the jury ruled without a shred of physical evidence linking him to the crime. Later, the judge dismissed allegations that racist remarks had been made by the jury after questioning only four of the 12 jurors, and despite one member’s affidavit asserting that explicit racial insults had been made.
In mid-November, the Massachusetts Appeals Court heard arguments for Laguer’s right to a new trial. The court promised that a decision would be made within four months. It has missed its deadline.
The evidence for a new trial is overwhelming. William Nowick, one of the 12 white male jurors in Laguer’s trial, signed an affidavit recalling these remarks by the jury’s foreman: “The goddamned spic is guilty just sitting there. Look at him. Why even bother having a trial.” When jurors speculated as to how the eight-hour rape could continue for so long, Nowick says that the same juror said: “Spics screw all day and night.”
During the trial, Leominster police asserted that all their evidence, including fingerprints and the victim’s pocketbook, had been lost. The prosecution’s case rested on the victim’s identification of Laguer in a photo lineup.
But the victim, a diagnosed schizophrenic who was taking pain medication when she fingered Laguer, had trouble distinguishing between white and black men during the trial. Evidence of her mental state was deemed inadmissable.
Clearly, the prosecution fell far short of meeting the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But the foreman’s alleged statements suggest that Laguer’s Puerto Rican heritage was the most damning evidence against him.
Whether Laguer, who has spent ten years in prison, is guilty of the brutal crime he was convicted of remains a matter for the courts to decide. That Laguer should be granted a new trial is not a matter of debate.
The only way to combat lies and innuendo is by getting the facts out.
They’ve been leaving out important information repeatedly this year.
None of this is important!! Laguer’s innoncent (in my opinion), did not get a fair trial (in my opinion), and deserves the support of anyone who call themselves a civil rights attorney (in my opinion). But none of this is important!
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Politics doesn’t work that way. It’s the response (the cover-up) that’s important not the underlying allegations. Reilly’s “Politics isn’t my strong suit” moment was more important that whatever St. Fleur did or didn’t do. Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” moment is more important than whatever he did with Lewinsky.
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“I am not a crook.” is not a defense.
This is going to start hurting the Globe’s reputation. It used to be the Globe could be counted on to get certain facts out regardless of the story.
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Now it looks like they don’t want to have the facts “spoil a good story.”
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Disgraceful.
I think the most telling problem is how Patrick has mishandled this. His campaign staff should be ashamed at the anemic way in which they’re handling this. By letting facts to dribble out in this way, it looks like he’s hiding somehting. The onus is not on the Globe for full disclosure. it’s on Mr. Patrick to say how he handled the case.
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I am not a fan of Healy. I find her trying to categorize herself as a crime fighter laughable. I’m almost waiting for her to inform the voters that she’s been secretly battling criminals on the streets at night like Bruce Wayne.
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But we should have known all along that this would happen. I think the BG has been too easy on Mr. Patrick. If he can take a lesson from Bill Clinton, the papers might have the same beliefs as you do, but don’t ever assume that it will get you a free pass.Don’t get mad at the Globe. Get mad at the candidate for leaving himself open to attack.
….Is the fact that in 2002 DNA confirmed that he WAS the person who raped an elderly woman for 8 hours.
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Patrick did little or no homework about this, which is why he is backing away from it now like a cat which trod in a puddle of parfume.
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Don’t perpetuate a hoax by citing old news articles – the Globe was doing him a FAVOR by clamming up!
Patrick’s comments in support of a new trial all came before the 2002 DNA test. But he is wrong to change his mind in light of that DNA test. The fact remains that this DNA test came after the trial, so it did not figure in LaGuer’s conviction.
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He did not get a fair trial. Even if he is guilty, that’s for a jury to decide, not for us on the blogs or even for the police after the fact. If he did not get a fair trial the first time, he should get a new trial, and all the evidence can be presented to a new jury.
And what you’re missing is that without the DNA evidence, LaGuer sure seems to have gotten the shaft.
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Patrick supported him before the DNA tests were performed. It’s not a matter of “doing little or no homework”. Given the following facts, and not knowing about the DNA evidence, can you honestly say that you have no doubt in your mind that LaGuer was a rapist?
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Without the DNA evidence, can you say that you are 100% convinced that he is guilty, and was given a fair trial? And even with it, and the questions surrounding it, are you still perfectly comfortable?
In any other circumstances, you would rant about blaming the victim. Are you sure she wasn’t dressed provocatively, too?
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The DNA DOES exist. The Jury DID reach the correct verdict.
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The only real isue remaining is why Patrick lied about the extent of his involvement. Is that his default response to a question about his judgement, instead of saying – hey, I was concerned about what seemed at the time like an unfair trial. Subsequent evidence showed that the man was guilty, but the questions deserved to be asked.
The DNA was tested and shown to be LaGuer’s. That test was paid for in part by Deval. I guess the test would only be legit if it exculpated LaGuer.
If you dig through the volumns of documents and newspaper articles, when they sought a saliva sample, in order to prove blood, Laguer provided a saliva sample from his cellblock mate.
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Add such behavior to the DNA proof, and it’s easy to see why the Judiciary is sceptical of granting a new trial.
That’s an important allegation.
scroll down
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Guys, a little ideology here, the essence of conservative philosophy is doubt: question those things held out as facts. I’m sceptical of the advocates of Mr. Laguer and sceptical of Mr. Laguer’s story.
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I’m really sceptical of Deval Patrick’s incredible “memory lapses,” to wit:
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-“I may have sent a letter more than 10 years ago.” Try 6 years ago. Also, it was a couple letters. Why I reckon that the diff between 6 and 10 is just rounding, sorta like the difference between 5.3 and 5.0%.
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-“I don’t recall sending money.” He remembers a letter but doesn’t remember money?! I hope he remembers taxpayers’ money!
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-His spokesman: “he wrote those letters when working with the NAACP.” Er…no, he didn’t. He’d already left NAACP at the time of the letters.
Indeed we should be skeptical of all the claims. And I am indeed a little frustrated that Patrick has not been totally forthcoming about his involvement.
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The prisons are chock-full of guilty people who maintain their innocence. That’s just human nature. Maybe LaGuer is one of them.
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Sure, he used someone else’s saliva. Maybe he is indeed a serial liar and “flim-flam artist”. None of that means that he’s a rapist, and more to the point, it doesn’t mean that he got a fair trial.
LaGuer’s trial might have been deeply flawed, there might be evidence contamination/mishandled evidence, etc. etc. etc. — and he might still have done it. The question of whether our criminal justice system is functional or not is bigger that just this case.
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But I’m up for hearing more about the case — bring us the goods, Gary.
There would seem to be doubt from certain forensic biologists about the DNA test itself, especially as regards its sensitivity to evidence contamination.
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Follow the link for my digest on that — and if you read the letters themselves, you’ll see that I’m actually kind of soft-pedaling how intensely skeptical those folks are.
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Seriously, take a look and decide for yourself if there’s any doubt about the DNA. And even Deval doesn’t want to address that issue.
And Patrick has not lied about his involvement. His biggest mistake probably was expecting the Republicans to actually focus on the issues that really matter to the voters in this state instead of engaging in the usually fear and smear campaign.
Two really interesting stories in the Herald.
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First, John Silbert says Deval Patrick did the right thing
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Then there’s the cop killer who is doing soft time at the state house.
Silber’s comments carries weight; say what you will about the man he certainly is not soft on crime.
on this NoPolitician. This is one example of why blogs matter. This post provides much needed context (…gee I thought respected newspapers could still do that). It is very important to know what Patrick was seeing and hearing pre-DNA to make the decisions he made on this case.
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While the public perception looks terrible at first blush, it is entirely plausible for someone who’s committed his adult life to protecting civil rights to look at the evidence in this case — pre-DNA — and think that justice was not served.
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Admittedly, Patrick’s career up till this point has been different from the socialite-criminologist from Prides Crossing. But, even some Republicans will admit that sometimes the Government gets it wrong — Patrick thought so in this case. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he wasn’t but at least he had the guts to take a stand that certainly he had nothing to gain from.
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Hmm, a politician that has strong convictions and is willing to take an unpopular position.
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Note to the Patrick Campaign: Time to shut off the cruise control.
The halo is tarnished a little. As I said above, if he had responded more like a saint and less like a politician (gasp!) and acknowledged his involvement – BEFORE the DNA proof – this would have lasted 15 minutes, if that.
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As it is, his defensiveness, his evasiveness, his lawyerly and carefully crafted statements, all make him sound guilty as hell.
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And it DOES genuinely call into question his thought processes.
I’ll take the tarnished halo. I’m reminded of the Peter Gelzinis column complaining that you’ll always be disappointed by “dreamboat” candidates. Well, yeah. So maybe we shouldn’t treat the election as the race for celebrity-in-chief.
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In the end, it ain’t about Deval or Kerry. Whoever gets elected is going to need to be reminded, cajoled and encouraged to do a good job. They’re vulnerable human beings like everyone else.
Take it down a notch. Now that the armor’s off, can Mr. Patrick prove that he’s worthy of our vote. I encourage all of you who embraced him to really look at him without the progressive beer-goggles.
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Don’t bother engagng a Peter Porcupine in a firefight. He’s only interested in fiddling while Rome burns for the GOP. The CRIMINOLOGIST© (formerly know as Kerry Murphy Muffy Pride’s Crossing Healy) has never prosecuted a case and she will play the same tunes of money and fear until the cows come home.
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BTW, what’s the murder rate in MA done under the reign of the CRIMINOLOGIST©? It seems to be going up.
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Better get to the CRIMINOLOGIST©-cave in Pride’s Crossing and hit the srime computer…..
Porcupine and I engage only in the most refined raillery, sir.
is that like the Orange line or something?
a single day as a CRIMINOLOGIST?
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I honestly don’t know. Can someone fill me in?
If what you really care about is getting Deval elected, then most of the aspects of this guy’s legal case isn’t very important. The guy failed the DNA test – for 99% of the voting public he is guilty – period, hand wringing (of some Deval supporters) about the fairness of Laguer’s legal history only plays into Healey’s strategy.
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What matters, I agree with several others, is to get all the facts on the table about Patrick’s role out NOW (2 days ago would obviously have been better) and to use the duration of the “crime” issue in this campaign to point out all the Healey shortcomings on this topic, of which there are now several compelling pieces:
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* Their policies have resulted in fewer cops, Deval has a specific proposal for more cops using methods of community policing that have a proven track record of reducing crime.
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* The Hillman break he gave to his “buddy” to get out of trouble, one of the charges was assaulting a police officer.
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* The Herald article today about the cop killer getting to clean the State House – happened on their watch. This is the weakest of the 3 points (no direct involvement by Mitt or Muffy) but still worthy of inclusion in a checklist.
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Deval should be very assertive on this issue and say he’s happy to have law & order be a big issue on this campaign because he has a better record on it and will do a better job protecting the public from crime.
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On the Healey attack TV ad – I think she has over-reached, that would have been an effective ad in the last 36 hours of the race, but now there is too much time for the public to realize the attack is fundamentally unfair – Patrick was not only doing his job but he was also supporting the constitution and trying only to get his client life in prison with no parole instead of the death penalty – a position I think most voters will be confortable with.
were OUI’s,…… tough on crime……..way to go Muffy that is in line with Melanies law
Another big one – that their administration tried to cut funding for the sex offenders list – these lists are out of date and not accurate under their watch which puts the public at risk.
He should totally have taken the bull by the horns on this one:
– he should have owned up right away to the full extend of his involvement in the case
– he should not act apologetic but proud of his involvement. Don’t let Healey set the tone of the discussion. This is not about being “soft on crime” but about making sure the cops and the courts are doing what we the people are paying them for: serving justice
– I think he was right to back off following the DNA evidence given his political position. Although the evidence is suspect, there’s less of a clear case of misjustice now so continuing his support of laguer would not be wise political.
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Patrick is now forced to be on the defense about this whole issue, whereas I think if he’d jumped on it right away, he could have laid out the game board on his terms, not Healey’s.