Don’t you just love politics? These are the kinds of moves which makes an already leery public even more suspicious of officials. Publish the damn statement like you would on any other case.
Former probation commissioner John J. O’Brien caught a legal break at his arraignment on bribery and four other charges yesterday, as a clerk magistrate agreed to keep confidential a prosecution document laying out the charges against him.
Prosecutors for Attorney General Martha Coakley had planned to file a detailed public statement of the case against O’Brien, 54, at his brief arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court. But the lawyer for O’Brien’s codefendant, Scott Campbell, persuaded the court to seal the prosecutor’s report to prevent further negative pretrial publicity.
As a result, the public will not be able to review details of an alleged 2005 bargain under which prosecutors say O’Brien held a fund-raiser for Campbell’s boss, state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, in exchange for a job for O’Brien’s wife at the Lottery, which was supervised by Cahill.
“If there was an issue, the assistant attorney general obviously should have raised it,’’ said Hennigan. “The attorney general can certainly provide the public with this information.’’
…But officials in Coakley’s office said the clerk magistrate did not give the prosecutor a choice on the matter, telling Mullin he had to file the statement of the case under seal or not at all.
I think this smells.
Is this extraordinary or standard operating procedure?
The reason given sounds plausible — even if I’m curious and I’m sure others would like to find out more about O’Brien.
I am a big supporter of the rights of the accused – rights that are enshrined in our Constitution.
Therefore it seems fair to me that prosecutors’ accusations should not be made public until the defense has a chance to respond.
But unfortunately this is not the case in normal criminal cases.
Last July 3, there was a horrible murder in Wayland. Nathaniel Fujita was arraigned and the prosecution document immediately released. Like most such documents, it presented a one-dimensional view of Fujita as an inhuman monster. This was the basis for subsequent news coverage. The defense has not yet responded. I don’t know how the requirement for discovery works – at what point in time is the prosecution required to turn over their evidence to the defense? Was the defense incompetent to not respond, or was it because they didn’t have the information they needed?
The result is that the public was presented with a one-sided picture
that they had other targets and were keeping the information secret for now.
Here I am talking about the scent of distrust spoiling the air on such a wonderful day.
But, then I read this….
How can they possibly think we are all that stupid? Or are we?