Too Tough On Crime!?!
I’m not sure I know exactly what this means. Yeah, I speak the language, I understand the words, but I find this hard to grasp.
“You said something here that concerned me . . . about whenever possible to maximize protection. What does that mean? Are you going to be presumptively in favor of protecting the public?”
I’ve lived in Massachusetts for a long time now, seen a lot of pols and a lot of judges in action, and I think I get it. You give it a stab, see if you get it. Here’s the Boston Herald, on the grilling of judicial nominee Garry V. Inge by Governor’s Councilor Thomas Merrigan:
Garry V. Inge, who was nominated by Gov. Deval Patrick to the Superior Court bench in Boston, withstood a withering line of questions by Councilor Tom Merrigan on Wednesday after writing in his application that judges should sentence criminals “to maximize the protection of the public.”
Merrigan, a Democrat, quickly pounced on the statement.
“You said something here that concerned me . . . about whenever possible to maximize protection. What does that mean?” Merrigan said. “Are you going to be presumptively in favor of protecting the public?”
Merrigan’s line of questioning outraged victims’ rights advocate Laurie Myers, who said most Bay State judges are too lenient.
“Maybe it’s time for this guy to wake up and realize it’s the judge’s responsibility to keep the public safe,” Myers said. “As a citizen, that’s who I want as a judge.”
Just yesterday, a Lawrence judge dismissed charges against a 29-year-old man who beat a father of four to death, saying he can’t face trial because of his low IQ.
Convicted killer Daniel T. Tavares made headlines during the Republican presidential campaign when he brutally murdered a Washington state newlywed couple months after he was sprung from prison by a judge appointed by former Gov. Mitt Romney.
Governors Councilor Marilyn Devaney, who witnessed Inge’s grilling, said she was appalled by Merrigan’s questions.
“I was astounded that anyone would question someone who is concerned with protecting the public,” Devaney said. “He was kind of bullying him.”
Merrigan, who served 12 years as a judge in western Massachusetts, said he just wanted to make sure Inge has no bias either way.
“I wasn’t critical of him, and anyone who says I was is wrong,” Merrigan said. “I have no issue with someone wanting to protect the public.”
Inge, who declined to comment on the job interview, seemed visibly flustered during the questioning – evident in a video of the interview on Youtube.
“I don’t feel that I’m a reactionary and that I want to just throw people in prison and throw the key away,” he told Merrigan.
Inge has been a Boston trial attorney for nearly three decades and was nominated for the $129,000-a-year judgeship last month.
Noted Hub attorney Drew Meyer said Inge “enjoys a great reputation” in Massachusetts.
YouTube, you judge. The real shocker, by the way, isn’t that the governor’s councilor grilled the judicial nominee in this absurd fashion. Merrigan is himself a former Massachusetts judge, so you have to start with the assumption that his … judgment … stands a good chance of being unsound. The shocker is that Deval Patrick appointed someone with Inge’s perspective in the first place. Not since the great compassionate, principled, hanging judge Robert ”Black Bart” Barton sat in Middlesex, spreading dread among defense attorneys and cons, I have seen that kind of sentiment expressed around here.
At YouTube, you’ll see a flummoxed Inge trying to explain to this ex-country judge, who in his day had an admirable concern for his bucolic perps’ hillbilly heroin problems, that what happens in a courtroom it isn’t just between a judge and a fallen angel. There are also neighborhoods that need to be protected from predatory criminals, and just as bad, thoughtless ones who don’t give a damn who gets caught in the crossfire. I think I know some of the communities he is talking about. One of them sprawls south from where I work, and our reporters do a lot of business there. Question One on shootings, gangbanger on gangbanger, or did they drag in innocents again this time? Without question, maximizing the protection of the public should be presumptive, because these are communities that live in terror, where parents don’t know if they or their children will make it home safe, or even, when bullets fly through walls, if they are safe at home. Where parents have to fear as well that their children might take up with the criminals.
(Governor’s councilors, for those not familiar with our quaint system of government, are elected to offer advice and consent on gubernatorial appointments, possibly because the founding fathers figured this was better kept out of the hands of the other hacks who had their hands all over every other aspect of government.)
Topics: hacks,law & order
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:09 am Comments (2) on Friday, February 27, 2009
2 Responses to “Too Tough On Crime!?!”
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February 27th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
[...] Your Latest Massachusetts Outrages February 27, 2009 Posted by taoist in Politics. Tags: Bureaucracy, Crime, Failed State, Mass-Backwards, Massachusetts, RMV trackback Here, here, and here. [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
“I don’t feel that I’m a reactionary and that I want to just throw people in prison and throw the key away,” he told Merrigan.
If not, why not?