Tragically, the freed murderer committed murder again in Washington state.
Daniel Tavares served 16 years for murdering his mother and was released in June, then quickly arrested again on charges of assaulting prison guards. Tavares appealed his bail and was released in July by judge Kathe Tuttman, who released Tavares on personal recognizance. Judge Tuttman was a Romney appointee. Should this reflect upon his candidacy for POTUS?
Please share widely!
is sauce for the Mittster?
Appoints these judges matters not. Is it not tragic that the qualifications for judgeship boil down to political donation in cash or kind? Is it any wonder that the general public has no respect for the courts? Court systems are full of these hacks. I’m surprised anyone is left in the prisons.
<
p>Oh well, at least the judge enjoys being called “Your Honor” in the courtroom. This is better than what he or she was called when just a $#$#&!!! lawyer.
Pressure is put on judges to lighten the population in prisons. Prisons reach capacity soon after they are built or expanded. Prisons are big business in the United States. All are bursting at the seams. Feedback to the judges is; “Slow down, you’re sending too many in, wait for some to get out!”
<
p>Once in prison, the inmate is given all kinds of chances to get out. “Good Time” is a concoction that subtracts sentence time for going to AA or learning to read, or attending anger management classes.
<
p>The joke in law enforcement is that nobody wants to capture the people that take off for other ports of call. That’s why bails are set low. It costs too much and would just further clog the judicial systems to have these criminals around. So, it you want to do a state crime, it might be best just to make sure it doesn’t get too much headline (don’t embarrass the cops), take off for Las Vegas or Florida, and don’t stand out too much once you get there. (And NEVER tell your significant other!) Don’t be anyone’s headache.
<
p>Really, the criminal justice system is designed to support the criminal justice system. Not to provide punishment, rehabilitation, or mental health aid. If you believe anything else, you’ve been watching too much TV.
<
p>
Please, Democrats, don’t take the bait! These kind of proxy attacks on judicial independence are ill-advised and are likely to result (though I’ve not seen any data) in sentences skewed toward the draconian.
<
p>Part of the cost of an independent judiciary and discretion in sentencing is the occasional mistake. You can’t have one without the other. A governor or President is responsible for appointing well-qualified judges, not for those judges’ decisions.
<
p>And though I have no desire to defend Romney’s judicial picks in general or Judge Tuttman in particular, I note that she was a career prosecutor before coming to the bench, so it is unlikely that she is “soft on crime” by disposition.
<
p>TedF
Expecting no mistakes is unrealistic and could only happen under a rigid system. Further, in our partisan world, these incidents will be used as wedges to separate us from due process and civil liberties.
<
p>I’m reminded of the idea in decision theory that it is mistaken to judge a decision solely by its outcome. For example, the mathematically correct play in poker, bridge, backgammon, or black jack can lose. That does not mean it isn’t the right play.
<
p>That said, there is still an empirical question. We would expect that specific judges might be too cavalier about public safety. Coming to that assessment about a specific judge seems delicate. In the political climate, it seems near impossible.
<
p>KBusch, this is exactly right, and it makes me realize that my comment was too wishy-washy. I wrote that there are bound to be mistaken decisions in an independent judiciary, but it’s not at all clear to me that there was a mistake here. Sure, there’s lots of evidence ex post that this defendant should have been committed to jail pending trial, but what was the evidence ex ante?
<
p>TedF
That having ascended to the loft position of superior court judge, after he was repeatedly hoodwinked, conned, flim/flammed, and scammed by career criminals –the light finally came on. Of course in the meantime, the public had to endure rapes, murders, and robberies due to his misplaced priorities. More mistakes? Like Norman Mailer helping spring the murderer (In the Belly of the Beast) , who killed a waiter in a restaurant. These are not just whimsical failings of one person or a system. These are egregious (they should be criminal) acts of conduct characterized as gross negligence.
“Repeatedly” is another matter. So is “hookwinked”.
<
p>So is evidence.
<
p>When you catch your breath, you might you supply some.
I will start this off by saying I’m completely prejudiced on the matter, since my cousin was shot in the head twice, but I would never – in a million years – give anyone who committed murder an early exit from prison. In fact, when it comes to first degree murder, the only cases I think it’s reasonable to eventually let someone out is if they were under the age of 20 or so when they committed the offense.
The crime was horrific beyond imagination (the actual nature of the injury was witheld from the family, public, and the jurors). “The pebble in the pond” consequence of this crime is beyond imagination. Two families were destroyed, literally. Friends of the victim required medical and pschological treatment for years. There was an early death of a victim family member.
<
p>Murder and extreme crimes of violence are beyond the comprehension of most people. The average citizen does not appreciate and will never come in contact with a monster.
Sociopathic predators who are always on the hunt, or whom have a “switch” that may be thrown by the most inoccuous of statements, or acts.
<
p>Violent criminals must be incarcerated until they are elderly or for life. The California inmate who raped and chopped off a young girls arms and left her for dead. She survived. He did twenty or thirty years and was released. He could go nowhere in CA, because people wanted to kill him, the state put him up in a trailer at Chino. He moved to FL. He murdered a young girl six months later.
<
p>MISTAKES?
a minor is killed and the child’s legal guardians don’t get to know the details after the court case?
Judge Tuttman, Judge Lopez are the occasional mistakes. Many of the judges in Suffolk County are the occasional mistakes.
<
p>This guy Tavares: previous armed robberies and crimes of violence, A mind boggling horrific murder of his mother. Assaults on correctional authorities. Threats to murder officials when released. All well documented and layed out to judge Tuttman. Remember—–Tuttman was a bail APPEAL hearing, AFTER, a district court judge set bail at 50K, knowing that Tavares could not meet it.
<
p>This woman should be immediately assigned to all civil cases and her actions be investigated by the SJC. This woman is incompetent to hear criminal cases where potentially dangerous defendants appear before the court. She is clueless as the her RESPONSIBILITY to the public and the community are. It was patently obvious to everyone except judge Tuttman that TAVARES posed a clear and present danger to anyone and everyone around him.
As I understand it, the prosecution didn’t seek a dangerousness hearing, so I don’t know why you insist on faulting the judge. See my response to KBusch’s comment, above–while I spoke of “mistakes” in my original post, I’m not at all convinced that the judge made a mistake here.
<
p>I think your view is dangerous and demagogic. The gist of your post, and its title, are to me evidence of the kind of thinking that is leading to serious infringements on civil liberties. It’s always safer to lock people up, to have them under constant surveillance, to allow searches without warrants, etc. And it’s easy to twist a tragedy like the Tavares case for such ends. But do you have any statistical evidence on the prevalence of defendants released on personal recognizance committing violent crimes, or any argument that the prevelance of that problem outweighs the notion that we shouldn’t punish people who haven’t been first convicted of a crime?
<
p>TedF
<
p>…or any argument that the prevelance of that problem outweighs the notion that we shouldn’t punish people who haven’t been first convicted of a crime
<
p>This really is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Bail is supposed to enhance the likelihood that the alleged perp will appear at trial for the crime for which he or she has been charged. Nothing more. Nothing less. That is something that is usually overlooked by the “LawnOrder” types.
<
p>None of the people here have suggested that the judge at issue misapplied the MA state bail statutes. They don’t even quote the bail statutes that they may believe have been misapplied. I am amazed at that. That suggests to me that they aren’t interested in the rule of law; they are only interested in the rule of the jungle. To hell with the rule of law mantra.
Is correct, Mitt stripped the Judicial Nominating Commission of much of it’s power to evaluate candidates. Then later nominated Tuttman. This is going to be a tough one for the Mittster. With all of his flip flopping Republican voters are weary. Now will they also question his ability to nominate judges?
<
p>Globe article here.
Too many Massachusetts judges have a history of not taking account the the danger to public safety posed by violent criminals such as Tavares, regardless of whether they were vetted by the Judicial Nominating Council or appointed by a Democratic or Republican Governor. Judge Kathe Tuttman follows in the long history of similarly reckless Massachusetts judges such as former Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez (originally appointed by Gov. Dukakis to the District Court and elevated to the Superior Court by Gov Weld) who granted probation to an adult tranvestite who raped an eleven boy just a few years ago.
<
p>Massachusetts is plagued by judges like Tuttman and Lopez because neither our constitution nor statutes provide any effective check on the power and authority of judges. For example, the constitution of Massachusetts permits judges to be appointed by the Governor and hold office until the mandatory age of 70. Unlike some other states that authorize guberanatorial appointment of judges, Massachusetts does not have a provision for recall elections after a judge serves a certain amount of years on the bench. Moreover, the applications of judicial nominees are sealed and not available to the public for scrutiny. In addition, the Governor’s Council has been provided minimal resources by the Legislature to investigate judicial nominees and has demonstrate no desire to serve as little more than a rubber stamp for a Governor’s judicial choices. Finally, the Legislature has consistently shown much more interest in larding the court system with clerks, magistrates, and judges who are former aides, relatives, and political supporters with dubious qualifications than in reforming criminal procedure in Massachusetts. For example, the Legislature could change the bail statute to limit the ability of the Judge Tuttmans of the Massachusetts judiciary to allow a Daniel Tavares to be released on personal recognizance.
<
p>Moreover, one can attribute horrendous decisions such as Judge Tuttman’s to the arrogance, recklessness, and insensitivity of many Massachusetts judges. These robed men and women are the first ones to complain that their salaries (nearly $130,000 for Superior Court Judges like Judge Tuttman and generous pension to boot) are insufficient, their judical workload is too heavy, and their physical courtrooms and offices are not sufficently comfortable or well-maintained for legal professionals of their stature. As soon as Judge Tuttman, Governors Patrick and Romney, and our state legislative leaders issue apologies to the parents of the Maucks of Washington State, I am ready and eager to take up a collection for our impoverished and unappreciated Massachusetts judges.
<
p>Better yet, the Legislature, the Governor’s Council, and Governor Patrick have an opportunity to demonstrate that the maintaining public safety of Massachusetts remains the paramount consideration in the criminal justice system. They can start by recommending and adopting constitutional and statutory changes that will, yes, curb the independence and the frequent recklessness of individual state judges to release dangerous, unreconstructed criminals to prey upon the general citizenry. Why should the citizens of Massachusetts uphold the sanctity of “judicial independence” in the face of another in an extended line of many well-publicized “errors in judgment” made by Massachusetts judges that have resulted in bodily harm or, in the case of the Haucks, mortal consequences for two unsuspecting citizens of a state 3,000 miles from our dysfunctional Commonwealth?
The Governor’s Council has a track record of very partisan rejections of Governor’s choices – making the Governor choose somebody they will accept – like Tuttman.
A few observations
<
p>One, the headline of the post is not particularly accurate. Apparently the defendant served his sentence for murdering his mother. A sentence of 16 years seems to me a bit light for murder, but apparently that’s apparently what he was sentenced to in 1991.
<
p>Two, the defendant was not freed on his own recognizance on a charge of murder. He was freed on his own recognizance for allegedly assaulting two prison guards. I don’t know what the bail statutes are in Massachusetts, but it may well be that release on one’s own recognizance was not inappropriate under the state’s bail laws for a charge of that sort. If you don’t like the result in this case (recognizance), there is a simple solution: change the bail laws.
<
p>At the time of the defendant’s release, he had not been convicted of the crime of which he was charged and which precipitated the bail hearing.
<
p>Notes to EddieCoyle One it is my understanding that a governor’s nominee to a judgeship requires the approval of the Governor’s Council. Presuming that’s the case, and presuming further as you suggest the Council is not provided with the resources to investigate, there really is a simple solution: refuse to approve any nominee until the legislature gives them the resourses that they believe they need. It isn’t a mystery.
<
p>Two, there are only two alternatives that I can see regarding
<
p>Unlike some other states that authorize guberanatorial appointment of judges, Massachusetts does not have a provision for recall elections after a judge serves a certain amount of years on the bench.
<
p>Aside from the fact that the governor of MA does not appoint judges, he (or she) nominates them, there are two possibilities, but they basically amount to the same thing. One is election of judges. In most states, judges are elected. Texas has that, and it is reputed to have the best judiciary money can buy. It also gave rise to Judge Roy Moore of the 10 Commandments monument fame; he was removed as chief justice by a judicial review board not because of his idiotic opinions, but because he chose to ignore a court order from the federal courts, that had been affirmed on appeal, which placed the entire Alabama judicial system in disrepute.
<
p>BTW, as I’ve mentioned before, I come from Ohio. We had elected judges there. They were supposedly running without party designation, but (with a wink and a nod) everyone knew the party that they were running for.
<
p>The second is a system like that in California, which actually does provide a recall mechanism by the electorate after a certain number of years. That was actually used in the 1980s against Rose Byrd, then chief justice of the CA Supreme Court. Several wealthy interests in the state were upset by some of her court’s rulings, and they put together a recall petition, put it on the ballot, demonized her and got her recalled. There is little difference between an elective system and a recall system: the money calls the shots.
<
p>Mr. Coyle, regarding your last paragraph, save your breast beating for the rubes. If you want to have the bail statutes changed, the MA state legislature will have to do it. Recognize of course (which I’m sure that you are not willing to do) that the MA state legislature’s power in this regard is limited by the Bill of Rights of the US constitution (“excessive bail…” and so forth).
First, yes I agree that the Legislature should amend the bail laws, as it has previously done in connection with the Abuse Prevention Statute, to revoke bail against defendants who have had a Chapter 209A protective order filed against these defendants in domestic abuse statutes. I challenge Raj to cite a court that has stated the U.S. Constitution’s limitation against excessive bail prevents a state legislature from limiting the ability of convicted released murderer to obtain bail while facing unrelated violent assault charges and being wanted for questioning in a criminal matter in another state.
<
p>The idea of gumming up the dysfunctional Massachusetts court system by indefinitely postponing confirmation hearings for judicial nominees in the Governor’s Council until the Legislature provides the Council with sufficient resources to review their qualifications will just exacerbate the existing shortcomings (e.g. undue case delays, procedural mix-ups, and dubious plea-bargaining of certain violent crime cases)in the court system. A more sensible alternative would be to lobby your state legislator to either provide the financial, legal, and human resources the Governor’s Council needs to do its judicial screening job or amend the constitution so that the Legislature assumes the judicial advice and consent duties itself. The Legislature certainly has sufficent numbers of practicing lawyers and legislative aides who could investigate and question these judicial nominees.
<
p>In addition, please don’t mischaracterize my views as supporting the full-fledged election of judges in Massachusetts. The Texas example demonstrates how poorly judicial elections can serve the electorate. Judicial recall elections, after 7 or 10 years, would be an effective and limited instrument for the citizenry to curb the excesses of the state’s worst judges. Recall elections are just as sucesptible to being hijacked by corporate interests as the other Progressive era reform instruments of referenda and the initiative petition. Perhaps I am mistaken, I don’t hear Raj calling for the repeal of these two Progressive mechanisms of direct democracy. Regardless, if one wants to reduce the influence of corporate interests in recall elections, then the Legislature should pass clean campaign finance laws that restrict corporate influence in such elections. Moreover, the limitations on removal of a Massachusetts judge by either the Supreme Judicial Court or through impeachment by the Legislature make it next to impossible to have an incompetent, feckless, indifferent, or reckless state judge from being removed from the bench.
<
p>In the 1980’s, I recall when domestic violence cruelly took the life of Pamela Nigro-Dunn, after being coldly dismissed by Judge Paul Heffernan when she sought court protection from her abusive husband (see Eileen McNamara’s award winning series articles in the Boston Globe on this and other domestic abuse cases). Just few years ago, I observed a similar cavalier attitude during the protracted fiasco concerning Judge Maria Lopez and her sentencing to probation of a transvestite who raped an eleven year old boy. Now, we are witness to the mortal debacle involving Judge Kathe Tuttman and Daniel Tavares, and the Maucks of Washington State. Raj, if you really think my call for the political leaders of Massachusetts to demonstrate profound concern, compassion and legal action to address the public safety fears of the citizens of Massachusetts represents “breast beating for the rubes,” then why don’t you ask a domestic violence victim, a crime victim’s rights advocate, a violent crimes prosecutor, or the family members of the Nigros or the Maucks for their assessment about the quality of criminal justice being meted out by the Judge Heffernans, Lopezes, and Tuttmans of the Massachusetts judiciary. I would be willing to bet my house you will hear a similar cacophony of “breast beating for the rubes.”
Regarding your first paragraph, I did not suggest that the legislature ahould change the MA bail laws. As I indicated, I don’t know what the MA bail laws are. As to the last sentence of that paragraph, I’m not going to go looking for a case that suggests that a court cannot take prior convictions into account when determining what the bail, if any, should be.
<
p>I would suggest to you that one improvement might be that the MA prosecutor should be able to appeal the bail determination by the superior (“trial”) court judge to the appeals court, but that’s a separate issue. NB: I also believe that prosecutors should be able to appeal a sentencing determination following conviction, but that is completely orthogonal to this issue.
<
p>Regarding your second paragraph …will just exacerbate the existing shortcomings (e.g. undue case delays, procedural mix-ups, and dubious plea-bargaining of certain violent crime cases)in the court system… well, that’s the point. If the court system is not supplied with sufficient resources to perform their duties, there may eventually become a violation of due process, violative not only of the MA state constitution, but also of the US constitution.
<
p>Regarding your 3d paragraph, I did not suggest that you were suggesting election of judges. What I did suggest was the obvious point that recalls (per CA) were little different than elections. There are mechanisms in the MA constitution by which judges can be removed from the bench, and if not that substantially relieved of duty. The latter is what induced Maria Lopez to step down.
<
p>I am unfamiliar with the Pamela Nigro-Dunn case, but I’ll merely point out that the courts can issue all of the restraining orders they want. But the courts cannot themselves force the restrainee to obey the order. The courts need the cooperation of the applicant for the restraining order (have to call the cops), the sheriff, and the police department to enforce the order. The sad fact is that court-issued restraining orders are not self-enforcing. And that is a point that is often lost on people.
<
p>Regarding the other issues you raise in your last paragraph, need I write it further? Change the law. It isn’t an issue regarding the courts. It is an issue regarding the law. But what is a court supposed to do? At a parol hearing, the victim and victim’s family have the right to appear. If the victim or family wants to file a civil suit against the perp for wrongful death (as in the OJSimpson case) or other injury, they are certainly capable of doing so, but if the perp is judgement-proof (i.e., no money) what’s the point?
Tavares has a loooooong criminal history. The nature of his mother’s murder was violent, cruel, and unusual. He made threats to murder a correction officer. He made threats to murder public officials. He assaulted and battered a corrections official with a dangerous weapon. He has already murdered once to lend credence and veracity to threats to comit the same crime again. If this crime had been committed in another state this human excrement would be on death row.
<
p>You would have been an excellent candidate to be a judge in MA. Not that many years ago, having a law degree and being admitted to the bar was not a requirement. You missed the band wagon.
I’ve never heard of Tavares (other than the 1970s disco group) before this thread. But it really would be nice if you were to stick to the issues raised in this thread.
<
p>He might be a really mean guy, but that is completely orthogonal to the issues raised in this thread. If you want him convicted of something it is highly unlikely that you would ever be able to sit on a jury at his trial given what you have commented here.
I’m no expert, but I think that in general an accused has a right to be freed on personal recognizance pending trial, and that the purpose of any conditions put on the pre-trial release is to assure the defendant’s presence at trial. In some cases (I don’t know the precise standard), of course, an accused can be denied bail. But that’s certainly not the default rule.
<
p>Are folks complaining that this particular defendant should have been denied bail altogether, or that he should have been required to put up some cash? The former argument seems weak, that he wasn’t being charged with, say murder. The latter argument is better, but really takes some of the wind out of the sails of those who are complaining about Judge Tuttman’s decision.
<
p>TedF
This tragedy is just the latest example of the flawed Massachusetts bail statute. Remember poor Jeffrey Curley? The sickos who tortured and killed him had multiple warrants for failing to appear at the time of his murder. But it’s not Judges’ fault when they implement the bail as written. Failure to implement the law as written would be, God forbid, judicial activism. Here’s the scoop: Massachusetts’ bail law creates a presumption of release on personal recognizance for all defendants, with the ONLY purpose of the bail law being to assure a defendant’s return for his next court date. If a prosecutor thinks a defendant is a danger to the community, it is the prosecutor’s obligation to seek to hold the defendant without bail after a dangerousness hearing. A Judge cannot properly move on his or her own motion to hold a defendant on dangerousness grounds, because that would be, God forbid, judicial activism. There was no dangerousness hearing requested for Tavares and he had ZERO history of defaults for failing to show up in court, despite a lengthy criminal record, according to the press reports. Sure, it’s easy to slam judges who can’t comment in the press or defend their decisions, but some easy steps would make a huge difference going forward:
<
p>1. Change the presumption of personal recognizance to create minimum bail requirements depending on the nature of the crime alleged (murder, felony or misdemeanor) and the number of prior defaults. If a defendant has ANY prior defaults, there should be a presumption of a specified minimum bail amount for example;
<
p>2. Allow local police departments to keep any bail monies forfeited upon arrest of defaulting defendants. Under the current law, a state actor (prosecutor, judge, probation officer) screws up the question of bail or conditions of bail and the defendants skips town. Any bail money forfeited goes to the state. In other words, the state gets the monetary benefit when the state makes the incorrect judgment about a defendant’s likelihood of appearing in court. The local cops only get a $50 arrest fee, which usually is waived by the courts or uncollectable. Instead, if a guy posts, say $200 bail and skips, the local city or town PD should get that bail money that’s already been posted PLUS the $50 arrest fee upon arresting the defaulter. This change alone would bring more than $1 million into local police department budgets and make defaulter pursuit economically possible;
<
p>3. Measure performance. There are NO metrics for prosecutors and judges to know whether they are making correct decisions on bail. EVERY default reflects an incorrect decision: either the prosecutor should have requested bail or higher bail, or the Judge failed to impose as much bail as requested. But NO prosecutor or judge ever is told after the fact how many defendants default from such decisions. And NO ONE in government or the public ever will know whether the judge or prosecutor is making correct or incorrect decisions. With the court system (slowly) becoming computerized, it’d be easy to track, so let’s track it and publish the results by Assistant District Attorney and by Judge. To preserve judicial independence, we can even hold off publication unless the Judge is incorrect for a majority of the time for more than two successive quarters of the year;
<
p>4. Create a deferential standard of Superior Court review. When Trial Judge’s decisions on the facts are appealed to the Appeals Court or Supreme Judicial Court, the findings of fact are given deference and only can be reversed if clearly erroneous. Yet when a District Court judge bail decision is reviewed by a Superior Court judge, the Superior Court judge can substitute his or her opinion and completely disregard the District Court judge decision on bail. That shouldn’t happen. Most criminal cases in Massachusetts are heard by District Court judges, while the majority of cases in the Superior Court are civil in nature. That means the District Judges are the folks in the trenches when it comes to crime. That doesn’t merit any deference? If the District Court Judge decision to hold Tavares on $50K bail had any legal effect in Superior Court, that young couple would be alive today. But Massachusetts law gives no such deference and it would be, God forbid, judicial activism for the Superior Court Judge to accord deference when the statutory scheme requires none;
<
p>5. Create pilot project for bounty hunters in Massachusetts. There are about 6 million people living in Massachusetts. Any guesses for how many warrants are now pending in the Warrant Management System? The sad secret of our state warrant system is that, with rare exception for the most dangerous felons, NO ONE IS ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR DEFENDANTS WHO DEFAULT FROM COURT. That’s right, in Massachusetts, every defendant gets TWO bites at the apple of criminal opportunity: the first crime, then the second crime for which they’re arrested/stopped while the first warrant is pending. Let’s look at how other states do this and pick a county (I vote for Suffolk, since defaulters tend to kill other people more frequently in Suffolk) to institute bail bondsmen and bounty hunters. Let’s measure it after two years to see if there is better than a 10% drop in defaults, a reduction in pending warrants and maybe even a reduction in the crime rate. If so, let’s roll it out statewide.
<
p>There, that’s off my chest! I’m interested to hear if anyone’s got better ideas to put on the table. Don’t blame Romney and certainly don’t blame the Judge. (And Romney should know better than to blame the Judge who, after all, was an experienced prosecutor when he nominated her to the bench) Instead, can SOMEONE show some leadership on criminal justice issues and get SOMETHING done in the Legislative process in Massachusetts? Good thing you all got rid of those pesky Republicans so you could run the state yourselves. So run it already.
<
p>Fondly,
<
p>Amicus
…Bounty hunters are the equivalent of the American mercenaries in Iraq.
Raj, I enjoy your posts, but I also asked for better ideas. I know that not everyone will agree with my several suggestions. But let’s put better ideas on the table rather than merely knocking down suggestions (it’s waaaay easier to knock down ideas than actually having to solve problems). Besides, what about the bounty hunter idea (compared to nightly shootings of kids by kids) is so awful that it should be off the plate at the outset? Who knows, even though it’s not election time, maybe some legislator or even Governor will peruse these posts from time to time and be inspired to propose solutions arising from these discussions–let’s give them something to work with.
…no mercenaries and no bounty hunters.
<
p>Do you understand?
Well, then, I’ll have the dialogue without you. Keeping in mind that this was the least of the ideas I suggested, let’s compare the status quo with a pilot project in Suffolk County for bounty hunters:
<
p>Status Quo: Defendant is ordered to post bail to assure his appearance on the next court date. He is held unless the specified bail amount is posted by a surety. The surety, if not the defendant then usually a friend or family member (usually the rent money or some other funds that the surety can ill afford to pay), pays the specified amount of bail to the court clerk and the clerk issues a mittimus form that serves as a receipt for the bail and authorizes the Sheriff to let the defendant go free. If the defendant appears in court each time as ordered, the surety gets the bail money back at the end of the case. If the defendant defaults, the surety loses the bail money and the funds are paid into the state Treasury. No one looks for the defaulting defendant most of the time and he remains free, until he is stopped or arrested for another reason and a police officer checks the computer to see if there are any outstanding warrants. As of today, there are over 100,000 active warrants in the state warrant management system. Repeat: no one is looking for any of these defendants. Most shooters and criminals in Boston have active warrants for their arrest and they tend to commit serial offenses until caught.
<
p>Pilot Project for Suffolk County Courts: In addition to family and friends, defendants can obtain bail money from a professional bail bondsman who charges a fee (usually 10%) of the bail amount as his payment. A $5,000 bail, for example, would include a $500 fee paid by the defendant that the bondsman gets to keep no matter what. The bondsman pays the bail into court, as per above, the defendant goes free. If the defendant appears each court date, the bondsman gets his money back at the end of the case (and gets to keep his 10% fee from the defendant). If the defendant skips, the bondsman will lose all of his bail money unless he returns the defendant to court. The bondsman hires private guards a/k/a bounty hunters to find the defendant and bring him back to court. Bounty hunters, as private security guards, are not subject to constitutional constraints as are police, but they are subject to civil and criminal claims for trespass, destruction of property, and any other civil or criminal action as any other private individual. Most bondsman will require that the defendant consent to searches and entry onto his property and vehicles as a condition of bail. The bounty hunters locate the defendant and return him to court so the bail is not forfeited. Repeat: bounty hunters are actively looking for any defaulting defendant for whom the bondsman has posted bail. This is done in many other states, but not Massachusetts. Leaving aside the glorified images (or violent lawless images) of bounty hunters one sees in the movies, and considering that kids with multiple warrants are killing people in Boston almost daily, why should this solution be off the table at the outset? Not even a pilot project?
<
p>No one is looking for most of these defendants. However, there are some who are being sought — folks on the top of the “SBI” [in MA is this just the state police or some other agency?] and FBI are both seeking some high profile criminals who have hopped bail. The worst of the worst are being pursued — perhaps not with many resources or very effectively, but it’s more than none. Just sayin’.
I said so in my main post, but couldn’t resist the hyperbole. I stand corrected: no one is actively looking for most defendants who default from court in Massachusetts. There are thousands of them, most with multiple warrants from multiple courts, who are serial offenders. A very small portion of the population is responsible for a very large portion of all crime. Stop the defaulters, end the revolving door, and crime goes down. No hyperbole there.
Massachusetts will not rendite for all misdemeanors and many felonies, unlike states like Arizona and Florida who will come after you for spitting on the sidewalk. Just goes to show where massachusetts priorities lay. Seems we are about to get a new Corrections Commissioner from the state of Washington who is cut out of the same bolt of cloth as Commissioner Boone back in 1976. The inmate party at Walpole has probably already started!
<
p>The bounty hunters locate the defendant and return him to court so the bail is not forfeited.
<
p>is the objection that I have with bounty hunters. They operate privately and take people into custody privately. If they were merely to locate the defendant, keep him or her under surveillance, and call the local police to take him or her into custody, and then go through an extradition hearing if the defendant was located out of state, I would have no objection. But apparently, that’s not the case.
<
p>I’ll put it to you succinctly. Much as I don’t trust the police, in MA or elsewhere, as far as I’m concerned private individuals should not have the power to wontonly exercise force in the public sphere. Nor should they have the power to “privately” extradite persons from other states without a hearing in court. Thst should be considered kidnapping, and we’ve seen enough of that by the US military in connection with the war on (some) terror.
<
p>I’ll repeat. If you don’t like the current MA bail laws, get them changed. Unless someone can suggest that the MA superior court judge was incorrect in her bail ruling under the laws of MA, for the crime of what the defendant was charged, or that she has the ability to see into the future, it strikes me that complaints about her ruling are (I’ll be charitable) misplaced.
Judge Black, Judge Stanziani, Judge Basbas, Judge Doyle, Judge Scott are just a few judges who come to mind that would have denied bail in a heart beat simply taking judicial notice of Tavares (et al) BOP record and any Mitimus’s on record.
<
p>The arguements that were offered are akin to people criticizing cops for failure to be pro active. Cops have no legal right to detain, stop and frisk, or roust wise guys, but they do it all the time.
<
p>It all boils down to: “What would a reasonable and prudent person do”? Judges don’t legally fall under this umbrella, but cops do. But judges do it anyway (good judges) and let the appelate process do what they have to do.
<
p>…cannot address the issues. The issues are what the law says, and whether the prosecutor has the ability to appeal a trial court judge’s ruling. If you do not like what the bail law says, get the bail law changed. If you want to prosecutor to have the ability to appeal a bail ruling, get the legislature to allow them to. (Maybe the prosecutors already do have that ability; I don’t know.)
<
p>Note to MCRD: a judge can take judicial notice of a criminal conviction. A judge can also take judicial notice of an arrest, but, unless it leads to conviction it has little if any weight.
<
p>BTW, you are wrong in your opinion that Cops have no legal right to detain, stop and frisk, or roust wise guys…. They most certainly do have that right, yes, even under the 4th amendment to the US constitution, and evidence will be admissible in court if they can show that they, in their professional judgement had reason to believe that the person detained, etc., might be involved in the commission of a crime.
<
p>I will avoid the OJ Simpson case, in which the police engaged in a search of the Simpson property without a warrant. Instead, I’ll send you to the Lawrence v. TX case. In that case, the Houston police received a telephone tip that an apartment had been broken into. The police entered the apartment on a search. Lo and behold, they discovered two men engaged in sex in violation of TX’s anti-homosexual sex statute. No warrant. But the search was not in violation of the 4th amendment since it was in response to a tip. BTW, IIRC the tipper was identified and prosecuted for filing a false police report.
<
p>It all boils down to: “What would a reasonable and prudent person do”?
<
p>Um, if the defendant in this case hadn’t gone on a rampage and committed a couple of other murders, it is highly unlikely that you would have ever heard of the case. I’ll harken back to the case of the 1960s radical Katherine Ann Power from Boston who was involved in a bank robbery that resulted in the death of a Boston policeman. She eluded the police for some four decades by not going on further rampages.
<
p>MCRD, hindsight is 20/20. But hindsight is an erroneous means by which to measure much of anything.
First, I want to say that I am not commenting upon the facts of this case as I never comment upon a case of which I know only the details from the media.
<
p>Secondly, I can not stand idly by while people jump all over Judge Tuttman.
<
p>As a criminal defense attorney for over 25 years, I got to know Kathe Tuttman as a no nonsense and extremely skilled prosecutor. Assistant District Attorney Tuttman was a leader in the field of DNA prosecution and she put many people behind bars for a whole lot of time for sex offenses as well as other crimes. This was her job and she did it well.
<
p>As a judge, there is no doubt Justice Tuttman brings this same level of commitment to the law.
<
p>Ed O’Reilly
I don’t want to say that she is a bad person, just that she is completely out of place and confused on the bench. Having seen her in action in civil court , each day seems like her first. I witnessed her get unrelated cases completely confused.
In my case I was trying to get a wealthy family criminally prosecuted by writing about their behavior which included doing drugs with kids.
Instead of investigating these crimes, she signed an injunction against me written up by the criminals lawyer. When I wrote about how their attorney had lied to Kathe Tuttman to get the order signed, she then tried to throw me in prison.
This then went to the Very Honorable Judge Thomas Billings who literally laughed at the injunction and provided case law proving it to be unconstitutional prior restraint as was also proven in the recent CH 7 case involving the B.F.D..
Also everyone should look into Tuttman’s harrassment of the grandmother of Haleigh Poutre, who saved her grandaughters life after she was nearly beaten to death by her State Foster parents. After the grandmother saved her by preventing the State from pulling the plug, Haleigh began to recover and then Tuttman prevented visitation.
Tuttman needs to resign for the sake of society. I will be filing to have her removed from the bench for what she did in my case. I wish I had done it last spring, these two people would not have been murdered.
Gregg B. Smith
SaveCapeAnn.com