View from the Berkshires

This is from a Berkshire blog. I here tell it was also in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Can anyone verify?

john adams: soft on crime

by Peter Vickery

Governor’s Councillor for Western Massachusetts

Recently the Romney-Healey administration nominated Attorney William Lemire for the position of Justice of the Superior Court. Attorney Lemire is a former prosecutor. You may have heard of one of his cases recently, the case of Commonwealth v. LaGuer. The Republicans have been using it to attack Deval Patrick.

There are plenty of judicial vacancies in Massachusetts and plenty of well-qualified candidates. But the Romney-Healey administration chose this moment to appoint this particular attorney. I was the only member of the Governor’s Council to vote against the appointment. Why? Because the LaGuer case casts a long shadow.

In 1984 an all-white jury convicted LaGuer of rape. Several factors cast doubt on the fairness of the trial. Here is one of those factors:

The rapist used a telephone cord to bind the victim. A police fingerprint report states that there were five fingerprints on the base of the telephone. One of those prints was incomplete and the police could not match it with LaGuer’s. Four of the prints were complete. They belonged to somebody else. They did not belong to LaGuer. But the jury never even heard about the existence of fingerprint report.

Earlier this year the Appeals Court said that the prosecution should not have withheld the fingerprint report. The case is now pending before the Supreme Judicial Court. In 1994, the Boston Globe pressed for a new trial. Along with former president Boston University John Silber and other prominent civic leaders, Deval Patrick concurred.

It is possible that Kerry Healey knew nothing about Attorney Lemire’s role in the LaGuer case. After all, she did not even attend his confirmation hearing. The only real task that our Constitution gives a Lieutenant Governor is that of chairing the Governor’s Council, the elected body that says “yes” or “no” to the Governor’s judicial nominations. To be fair, there is no constitutional requirement to stick around and listen to the Council’s public hearings for would-be judges. But she could. She just chooses not to.

In nominating the prosecutor in the LaGuer case for a judgeship, the Romney-Healey administration made a choice that was, to be generous, odd. Perhaps they were unaware of the Appeals Court’s comments about prosecutorial misconduct and the ongoing litigation or, on the other hand, perhaps they wanted to keep the case in the news to score a cheap political point. Either way, they have demonstrated their unfitness to govern.

As the first African-American nominee for Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick is now at the receiving end of attack ads that would make Karl Rove proud. One ad slams Patrick for pressing for a new, fair trial in the LaGuer case. Another berates Patrick for representing the murderer of a police officer. Almost needless to say, the killer was not white.

During the 1988 presidential election, the Republicans ran ads attacking Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis because of his decision to furlough Willie Horton. Now the Republicans are Willie-Hortonizing Deval Patrick. Their attack ads have just one purpose, to connect Deval Patrick in the public mind with violent criminals. When you think “Deval Patrick” the Republicans want you to think “cop-killing black rapist.” Let us give this tactic its name – race-baiting. Just in case the voters are not yet disgusted and cynical enough about politics, the Romney-Healey ad-makers are not taking any chances.

This is Massachusetts where, over two hundred years ago, British soldiers fired at demonstrators, killing five of them. We call the event the Boston Massacre. The redcoats who fired into the crowd needed an attorney. They got one of the best — John Adams, the Founding Father who authored the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If Kerry Healey’s spin doctors had been around they would have called John Adams soft on crime.

So in a case where an all-white jury convicted an African American of raping a white woman after the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, Deval Patrick wrote the Parole Board on the defendant’s behalf and (out of his own pocket) helped pay for a DNA test. In contrast, Kerry Healey wants to make the prosecutor in that case a judge. Between the two of them, who would you trust to uphold justice and the Constitution that John Adams bequeathed us?

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