According to NECN, all five Parole Board members who voted to parole Dominic Cinelli have resigned:
(NECN: Boston, Mass.) – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick this afternoon held a news conference on the review of the Massachusetts state Parole Board.
John Grossman of the Massachusetts Office of Public Safety also spoke at the news conference.
The review began after authorities said Dominic Cinelli, a parolee released from a triple life sentence, fatally shot Woburn police officer John Maguire following a robbery on December 26. Cinelli was also killed.
Patrick announced that all five board members who voted to release Cinelli have resigned and he has accepted their resignation. Patrick has also accepted the resignation of the executive director of the Parole Board during the Cinelli parole period.
Wow.
my understanding is that overall, Mass. has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country. I don’t know if anyone at BMG can confirm or deny that.
that will take some time, and more research, to put together. But my first impression was that Patrick was throwing these people under the bus in a rather cowardly fashion. I would prefer that more questions were answered by this “review”- was Cinnelli’s treatment exceptional? Was it symptomatic of systematic failures on the part of this board? Is it in fact s.o.p. to notify prosecutors of every parole hearing, as suggested by the reporting? Why weren’t we having this conversation when the parolee from Roslindale shot the 7-11 clerk, or in any other cases of parolees committing murder? How many such cases have there been, anyway? Did all the same board members who voted for Cinnelli’s pariole also vote for that other guy’s (Richard Corliss’) parole? There are complex, almost philosophical issues here that are hard to sort out, about accountability and how to judge performance. Here it seems that these people might have been judged by one decision, of which they probably have made hundreds, and which relies on an extremely inexact science. A bit like canning the economic development team for Evergreen Solar, though admittedly murder is a far more serious consequence for a bad judgment call, so it’s complicated. Part of me feels the same way about this case as Palin feels about Loughner- that the only one really to blame for this is Cinnelli himself.
It’s not like this was a knee jerk reaction by the Governor. He didn’t give the Scott Brown answer that “Heads should roll.” He said that he would wait for the report, and he did. The report showed that the board acted inappropriately in not notifying the Middlesex DA and that they actually made a mistake in presenting this case due to a “software” problem. Apparently, there are more resignations or disciplinary action to come.
This is absolutely the correct move. The ramifications of these folks doing sloppy work are, as we have seen, a significant threat to public safety.
Perhaps every time they fail to arrest a criminal who later goes on to commit a murder, all the officers involved in the investigation of the original crime should be fired.
in sloppy police work, then, yes, they should be appropriately disciplined or fired. No one can be perfect in their work. But when people’s lives are at stake we expect a level of competence that ensures an effective system. The parole board and the parole system fell far below that standard.
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p>If we want the parole system to work (and we should), then it must be an effective and trustworthy system with checks and reviews as a way of ensuring safety. The governor is right to do this and to file legislation to reform the department. Hopefully, the legislature will act with the same kind of decisiveness and thoughtfulness that the Governor has shown.
I am not usually one for sports metaphors but here I think it is somewhat appropriate. We are talking about a 5 member board that seriously screwed up, made the Governor look bad (a side issue to be sure but an issue none the less) and, in the process, undermined the public’s faith in the system.
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p>Simply put, 5 people is a reasonable number to fire. It is like when baseball teams fire the manager. It might have been the clerks who were supposed to contact the appropriate offices, it might have been a software issue that made things go bad but you don’t fire the short stop who booted the ground ball and you don’t try to figure out which clerks were to blame or what software was bad. You fire the manager.
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p>Parole is way more important than baseball and people’s faith in the parole system is way more important than these individuals’ jobs. Sometimes managers really deserve to be fired and sometimes they don’t but in the end it doesn’t really matter. They just need to go.
Sticking with the baseball metaphor, you don’t fire the manager when the shortstop flubs a ground ball. You bench the shortstop. You only fire the manager when the manager doesn’t bench the shortstop and he flubs a couple more.
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p>Likewise, you don’t fire the manager because the clerk forgot to make a phone call. You fire the manager when he doesn’t address the issue of a clerk who forgets to make phone calls.
But the administration in this case reviewed the performance of the Board and found it lacking. There were a number of issues and my point is that the responsibility lies with those at the top.
Looks like a moratorium on parole for some offenders until new system is in place and some version of three-strikes legislation.
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Press release here
A California man stole $150 of video tapes, a 3rd strike triggering a long sentence.
The lege should be careful not to go so far as to lock up people like this for too long. It really was not worth the taxpayer money to lock up that California guy for so long over $150 theft.
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p>Of course, murder is a different level of crime.
so forcing the state to spend its money to keep minor criminals behind bars for long periods is fiscally irresponsible.
Joel,
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p>Generally I agree with you on this issue and I am not actually advocating here for the Governor’s proposal but the details are important. As I understand it, the proposal is for a third conviction for a violent felony would result in the imposition of the highest sentence available for that felony. It is important that violent felony here be strictly defined but it is clearly different from the CA law and could not create those results.
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p>In the famous example that you cite, MA law does not allow for a life sentence for theft of video tapes so that would not be on the table even if this were considered a third strike, which it would not because it is not a violent felony.
Unless there is evidence of bribery or some kind of malfeasance I don’t think they should resign because a decision turned out to have these consequences.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s office was not notified of the hearing as is required under state law.
But who, specifically, is required to make that phone call?The chairman? A clerk? Surely it was not somehow the responsibility of only those members who voted for parole to notify the DA?
without the DA’s office there. None of them thought to question that?
went along with the hearing as well.
I guess they’re all out, and they all voted to parole him. It still looks a lot like governance by hysteria, but that’s just my opinion.
who was serving three consecutive life long sentences. Pardon us citizens for getting a little hysterical.
I don’t know why three consecutive life sentences also included the possibility of parole, but we can’t complain if a duly granted option were exercised.
I believe they were 3 concurrent 15-life sentences which means he is eligible for parole.
The board is responsible for the decision. They oversaw a process that was flawed. It is their responsibility to make sure procedures that are designed to safeguard the public are followed. They failed and two people are dead. That’s enough. No reason to look for a pattern of incompetence in order to build a case to replace them.
Sometime back I blogged here about “hardly anyone getting “punished” anymore. So many times now you hear people saying, “I take full responsibility for what happened” because being fired is not longer in style. I commend this action by the Govorner and I support the Parole Board’s decision to resign. Making a decision on a murderer with three life sentences is a very serious decision, one which you make damn sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed. The consequences of their decision was a dead police officer.
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p>It is absolutely possible that had the DA’s office been notified, they may still have reached the same decision… but they didn’t. Releasing any violent crominal will have risk and if we believe in a “parole system”, we must acknowledge that nobody is perfect and incorrect decisions will happen. If we can’t live with that rick, then change the system and eliminate paroles. Otherwise, we live with them, bad choices and all. But when a mistake happens and asses have not been covered, someone should pay.
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p>It would be wonderful if “this type of thing” could continue throughout our government, both elected officials and our state workers where being fired would be a consequence of serious inept or sloppy work. I’m sure if the Parole Board were part of a union, they would still be gainfully employed.
He was not a murdererer when he was paroled. His prison record was described as “a lengthy rap sheet filled with armed robberies, assaults and other offenses”. He was serving three life sentences, apparently in part for shooting a security guard during an armed robbery.
There is a parole officers’ union.
would be to add a requirement that procecutors, police departments etc. actively find out who is up for parole. It’s (obviously) not good enough to leave notification up to one person working for the parole board.