I hear that one of the Justices interrupted Defense Attorney Reinquist’s delivery of LaGuer’s appeal two sentences in, and asked if, “This hearing was simply a exercise (for argument’s sake) and the DNA evidence will sink him at a new trial?”
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p>
I found this to be highly inapproviate, and wondered why the judge would be looking at facts that are not involved in the appeal for reason to reject it.
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I think any reasonably sound logical person would have to admit that if a victim was bound with a cord taken from a phone on the wall had fingerprints on it that didn’t match the accused, the state had a responsibility to share that evidence. Not only did they not share it, but they lost it.
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To my understanding that is the only point they are supposed to be arguing right now. They are suppposed to be deciding if the fingerprints may have influenced a jury to come to another conclusion. This would have been the only physical evidence given in 1983.
<
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Lots of people want to breeze over the incredible lack of evidence in this case like it doesn’t matter because they hear DNA linked LaGuer to the scene. What they don’t hear is how the things taken from his apartment were mixed with other items from the scene, and contaminated the test.
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p>
A new trial will only prove him guilty if the state’s convicting evidence is as strong as they claim, so what do we have to lose? I know that I will always wonder for the rest of my life if we did the right thing unless we try him with impartiality, and ALL the evidence shared for jurors to consider.
speaking-outsays
You are absolutely right John. I was at the hearing, which can be seen on the Webcast. I was shocked that the justices (some of them at least) seemed to put so much stock in the DNA test, which has absolutely nothing to do with whether Ben got a fair trial in 1984. Much of the hearing sounded like the politicization of the case was making the judges look for a way to rule against Ben. The only two who seemed genuinely concerned about the fundamental constitutional issues at stake were Marshall and Ireland. If I am right (and trying to read judicial tea leaves is notoriously difficult) Ben better hope that those two can convince at least two of their colleagues that it’s not worth shredding the constitutional obligation of the commonwealth to share exculpatory evidence because of Kerry Healey’s disgusting campaign.
<
p>
Maybe the justices should have read the Herald in the morning to see that serious people are calling on the State Police to take a look at the questions raised by the evidence chain of custody. The DNA test has was botched and has never been subjected to an admissibility hearing.
<
p> (The Herald headline, by the way, is misleading. Don Mohammad is no more an aide to the new governor than is David Kravitz. He is a member of the clergy who served on a transition advisory committee.)
<
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Patrick aide still aids LaGuer: Pushes police to revisit DNA evidence in rape case
By Dave Wedge
Boston Herald Chief Enterprise Reporter
Thursday, January 4, 2007
A member of Gov. Deval Patrick’s transition team is lobbying state police to review DNA tests in the Ben LaGuer rape case, even after Patrick’s pledge to let the courts sort out the controversy.
Nation of Islam Minister Don Muhammad, a longtime LaGuer supporter and a member of Patrick’s public-safety advisory team, has been pushing state police attorneys to reopen the case to determine if materials tested for DNA were mishandled.
Muhammad, who was slated to give a sermon this morning at a prayer service in honor of the incoming governor, has called on state police to provide “answers” to questions over the handling of evidence found at the scene of the 1983 Leominster rape.
“I would like for them to make a position one way or the other with regards to their handling of the rape kit,” Muhammad said. “Someone has to explain all of these things that happened with regards to that rape kit.”
Muhammad added that he has not spoken with Patrick about the case, but expected it could “come up in conversation,” depending on what happens with LaGuer’s latest appeal.
LaGuer, whose case goes before the state’s highest court today as Patrick is sworn in as governor, claims forensic reports linking him to the crime are invalid because authorities matched his DNA to samples taken from his apartment – not from the original rape kit. Several DNA experts hired by LaGuer’s team have bolstered his claim.
State police attorney Ann McCarthy confirmed she has spoken with Muhammad, but said the department cannot reopen the case without orders from the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted LaGuer.
Liz Stammo, spokeswoman for new Worcester District Attorney James Early Jr., declined comment on the DNA controversy.
An SJC hearing today focuses on a fingerprint report LaGuer claims was withheld from him for 18 years. The report shows that prints lifted from the victim’s phone did not match LaGuer. The victim was bound with a phone cord.
LaGuer is seeking a new trial based on the report, but Worcester prosecutors have argued that the jury in the 1984 trial was told that none of LaGuer’s fingerprints was found in the apartment. LaGuer, who is serving a life sentence, has maintained his innocence and has won legions of supporters over the years, including Muhammad, Patrick, former Boston University Chancellor John Silber and former Urban League Director Joan Wallace-Benjamin, who is Patrick’s chief of staff.
The case became a lightning rod of controversy during Patrick’s heated race against Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey when it was reported that he supported LaGuer and wrote letters to the parole board on his behalf. Patrick has since said he withdrew his support after DNA tests linked LaGuer to the crime in 2002.
Last month, LaGuer called on Patrick to order a review of the DNA tests but Patrick vowed not to intervene in the case.
speaking-outsays
Thanks:
<
p>
John Hosty
DaveMB
Bob
Charley on the MTA
<
p>
for recommending this post. I’m glad it’s getting some play and I hope people who read it will have a better idea of how I came to be where I am regarding Ben. It’s been a much wilder ride than I ever anticipated in large part because of the attempt to turn Ben into the new Willie Horton last fall.
<
p>
I was very concerned that some of the justices harped so much on the DNA test in last week’s hearing. I expect I’ll be posting more on that as time goes by. I do want to mention, though, that I sought out all the print reporters and some of the TV crews milling the halls after the hearing and gave them quotes to that effect, but none of them chose to use them. I am not exactly sure why, but I have some ideas. The aura of scientific certainty surrounding the DNA is so attractive and fits so neatly with conventional wisdom that skeptics are easily written off. That’s one reason I am so grateful to a forum like BMG where the full letters explaining the problems with the DNA on the basis of scientific reasoning can be aired. As far as I know Dave Wedge at the Herald and Jonathan Saltzman at the Globe are the only two reporters so far to have called Ted Kessis, the expert who has studied the reports in greatest detail, to hear what he has to say. I continue to believe that the first MSM reporter to really study and write about the DNA issues in this case will get a great counter-intuitive story out of it. Such a story will not only have implications for Ben’s case. It will also be a great story about science and what can happen when we put blind faith in claims based on the infallibility of science. The point is, we can never forget the human element.
<
p>
I have total respect for reporters who take on a story and follow it to wherever it may lead. So how about it MSM journalists? I’d be glad to help you as a source in telling this story. The other sources you seek out and the places the story takes you will, of course, be up to you. So give me a call if you are even a little bit curious about this. Email me at eric.goldscheider@NOSPAMgmail.com (remove “NOSPAM”) or call at 413-253-0179. Just ask for Eric.
I hear that one of the Justices interrupted Defense Attorney Reinquist’s delivery of LaGuer’s appeal two sentences in, and asked if, “This hearing was simply a exercise (for argument’s sake) and the DNA evidence will sink him at a new trial?”
<
p>
I found this to be highly inapproviate, and wondered why the judge would be looking at facts that are not involved in the appeal for reason to reject it.
<
p>
I think any reasonably sound logical person would have to admit that if a victim was bound with a cord taken from a phone on the wall had fingerprints on it that didn’t match the accused, the state had a responsibility to share that evidence. Not only did they not share it, but they lost it.
<
p>
To my understanding that is the only point they are supposed to be arguing right now. They are suppposed to be deciding if the fingerprints may have influenced a jury to come to another conclusion. This would have been the only physical evidence given in 1983.
<
p>
Lots of people want to breeze over the incredible lack of evidence in this case like it doesn’t matter because they hear DNA linked LaGuer to the scene. What they don’t hear is how the things taken from his apartment were mixed with other items from the scene, and contaminated the test.
<
p>
A new trial will only prove him guilty if the state’s convicting evidence is as strong as they claim, so what do we have to lose? I know that I will always wonder for the rest of my life if we did the right thing unless we try him with impartiality, and ALL the evidence shared for jurors to consider.
You are absolutely right John. I was at the hearing, which can be seen on the Webcast. I was shocked that the justices (some of them at least) seemed to put so much stock in the DNA test, which has absolutely nothing to do with whether Ben got a fair trial in 1984. Much of the hearing sounded like the politicization of the case was making the judges look for a way to rule against Ben. The only two who seemed genuinely concerned about the fundamental constitutional issues at stake were Marshall and Ireland. If I am right (and trying to read judicial tea leaves is notoriously difficult) Ben better hope that those two can convince at least two of their colleagues that it’s not worth shredding the constitutional obligation of the commonwealth to share exculpatory evidence because of Kerry Healey’s disgusting campaign.
<
p>
Maybe the justices should have read the Herald in the morning to see that serious people are calling on the State Police to take a look at the questions raised by the evidence chain of custody. The DNA test has was botched and has never been subjected to an admissibility hearing.
<
p>
(The Herald headline, by the way, is misleading. Don Mohammad is no more an aide to the new governor than is David Kravitz. He is a member of the clergy who served on a transition advisory committee.)
<
p>
Thanks:
<
p>
John Hosty
DaveMB
Bob
Charley on the MTA
<
p>
for recommending this post. I’m glad it’s getting some play and I hope people who read it will have a better idea of how I came to be where I am regarding Ben. It’s been a much wilder ride than I ever anticipated in large part because of the attempt to turn Ben into the new Willie Horton last fall.
<
p>
I was very concerned that some of the justices harped so much on the DNA test in last week’s hearing. I expect I’ll be posting more on that as time goes by. I do want to mention, though, that I sought out all the print reporters and some of the TV crews milling the halls after the hearing and gave them quotes to that effect, but none of them chose to use them. I am not exactly sure why, but I have some ideas. The aura of scientific certainty surrounding the DNA is so attractive and fits so neatly with conventional wisdom that skeptics are easily written off. That’s one reason I am so grateful to a forum like BMG where the full letters explaining the problems with the DNA on the basis of scientific reasoning can be aired. As far as I know Dave Wedge at the Herald and Jonathan Saltzman at the Globe are the only two reporters so far to have called Ted Kessis, the expert who has studied the reports in greatest detail, to hear what he has to say. I continue to believe that the first MSM reporter to really study and write about the DNA issues in this case will get a great counter-intuitive story out of it. Such a story will not only have implications for Ben’s case. It will also be a great story about science and what can happen when we put blind faith in claims based on the infallibility of science. The point is, we can never forget the human element.
<
p>
I have total respect for reporters who take on a story and follow it to wherever it may lead. So how about it MSM journalists? I’d be glad to help you as a source in telling this story. The other sources you seek out and the places the story takes you will, of course, be up to you. So give me a call if you are even a little bit curious about this. Email me at eric.goldscheider@NOSPAMgmail.com (remove “NOSPAM”) or call at 413-253-0179. Just ask for Eric.