Mass.
lawmakers close talks on improving transparency
A
Massachusetts legislative committee hearing on ethics reform was closed
to the public and the news media June 4, the Boston Herald reported.
During the hearing,
Massachusetts senators and members from the House of Representatives
discussed how to improve transparency at the Massachusetts Statehouse,
the Herald reported.
“From now on, it will only be staff,” Senate Majority
Leader Frederick Berry, a Peabody Democrat, told the Herald as he
closed the hearing.
According to the Herald,
lawmakers voted unanimously to close the conference committee hearing,
and Berry did not answer questions about why it was closed.
“I think
the Legislature should have to comply with the (Massachusetts) Open
Meeting Law,” Rep. Jeffrey Perry, a Sandwich Republican on the
committee, told the Herald.
Pam
Wilmot, executive director of a Boston-based ethics watchdog group,
Common Cause, told the Herald that she thinks that all conference
committees should be open to the public, but she understands lawmakers’
decision to keep the ethics bill hearings private.
“There are many things
in the Legislature that are better done in front of the public. This
is the public’s business,” Wilmot said. “That said,
this is a very sensitive matter, and that’s why they don’t
want to do it.”
The hearing was
held just days after former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore
DiMasi, a Boston Democrat, was indicted on corruption charges. DiMasi
is the latest Massachusetts politician to be charged with a crime;
ex-Massachusetts Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, also a Boston Democrat, was
charged with bribery last fall, and Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner
was charged with bribery less than a month after Wilkerson.
R.I.
mulls shielding names of cops who shoot people
Legislation has been introduced
in the Rhode Island General Assembly that would prohibit a police
department from releasing the identity of a police officer involved
in a fatal shooting until after a grand jury investigation of the
shooting ends, The Providence (R.I.) Journal reported.
The proposal was prompted
by a Rhode Island Superior Court judge’s order that the Central
Falls, R.I., Police Department identify several officers involved
in the fatal shooting of a Guatemalan immigrant in 2007.
Judge Gilbert V. Indeglia
issued the order after the Rhode Island affiliate of the American
Civil Liberties Union sued for disclosure, the Journal reported. Before
the ruling, the police had withheld the information on the grounds
that it was exempt from disclosure under Rhode Island’s open
records law.
Joseph P. Moran, Central
Falls’ police chief, wants the General Assembly to amend the
Access to Public Records Act to bar a ruling like Indeglia’s
from being made again.
In the 2007 Central Falls
case, Moran refused to release the identity of the police involved
until Indeglia’s ruling six weeks after the shooting. A grand
jury later ruled that the officers were justified in shooting Garrido
Morales, who came after the officers with a knife.
According to the Journal,
Moran’s urging prompted Rhode Island Rep. Kenneth Vaudreuil,
a Central Falls Democrat, to introduce the legislation in May. The
bill is co-sponsored by several other representatives.
Central Falls Detective
Derrick Levasseur, who was involved in the 2007 shooting, testified
before the House Judiciary Committee at the beginning of June on behalf
of the legislation.
Steven
Brown, executive director of the ACLU’s Rhode Island affiliate,
and Linda Lotridge Levin, professor and chairwoman of the journalism
department at the University of Rhode Island, testified against the
proposal with a representative from Common Cause of Rhode Island,
a nonpartisan organization promoting open government.
Chief Moran said that releasing
an officer’s name immediately after a shooting can cause problems
for the officer, who will often suffer from post-traumatic stress
syndrome after a fatal shooting, the Journal reported.
“Once that information
gets out there, the officers are inundated,” Moran told the
Journal. “It creates some issues that these officers are trying
to recover from.”
The ACLU’s Brown
argued that a law concealing the identity of a police officer establishes
a double standard.
“If any other fatal
shooting occurs, information about the shooter and the victim are
not only public, but the police are quite eager to release it,”
Brown told the Journal.
According to the
Journal, it is unclear whether the House will vote on the proposal
this session. After hearing testimony, the Judiciary Committee recommended
that the proposal be held for additional study.
N.J.
blogger accused of provoking attack on Conn. lawmakers
A New Jersey Weblogger
and former radio talk-show host has surrendered to Connecticut authorities
and is facing charges of inciting violence against two Connecticut
lawmakers.
Harold “Hal”
Turner of North Bergen, N.J. waived extradition June 8 and posted
$25,000 bail, The Associated Press reported. Turner had been in custody
since June 3 when he was taken into custody by North Bergen police
acting on behalf of police in Connecticut.
According to AP, Connecticut
authorities plan to charge Turner with inciting injuries to persons
or property.
Turner wrote a June 2 post
on his Weblog, Turner Radio Network, that urged readers to “take
up arms” against two Democratic lawmakers in Connecticut, Sen.
Andrew McDonald of Stamford and Rep. Michael Lawlor of East Haven.
Michael Orozco, Turner’s
lawyer, told AP that the case was about freedom of speech.
McDonald and Lawlor introduced
a controversial proposal, since withdrawn, calling for lay members
of Roman Catholic parishes to be given more of a say in parish finances.
Turner called for the men to “be made an example of as a warning
to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die.”
According to AP, Turner’s
views are far right and he was questioned by the FBI in 2005 after
the relatives of Chicago-based U.S. District Court Judge Joan Humphrey
Lefkow were found murdered.
Turner had made
comments on his radio show in 2003 about Lefkow being “worthy
of being killed,” AP reported. He was not charged in connection
with the crimes.
The item above
was written, at least in part, from published reports by Jennifer
Skala, a graduate student at the Northeastern University School of
Journalism and a news staff coordinator for the Bulletin.
