The Governor's Council is not a clown car. It is the guardian of an entire branch of our government: our judiciary. My campaign is about making our judicial branch responsive to the will of the people and reflective of our values. Here are the how and why. maradolan.com/newsletters-bl…
Just as the legislative and executive branches of our government must reflect the will of the people, our judicial branch must too. But as the data shows, Massachusetts is falling very far short of that reasonable objective. MA has one of the world's highest incarceration rates.
We incarcerate people of color at 7-9x the rate of whites + we have the highest Latino incarceration rate in the country. Who is responsible for this unconscionable disparity? Judges. It is judges who hand down those sentences, but because MA wisely does not elect our judges...
...there is another responsible party that must be taken to task. It’s the Governor’s Council, because although we don’t elect our judges we do elect the people who ultimately choose them.
To make matters worse, the one mechanism our law provides to correct systemic racism in sentencing is grossly under-utilized. It’s clemency, known as commutations and pardons, which provide an opportunity for inmates who are rehabilitated and ready to return to society ...
...to be released, either by ending their sentence or by pardoning them for the crime for which they were convicted. Other states are showing that it can be done.
Last year alone, neighboring Connecticut pardoned 1,045 inmates. Last year in Massachusetts we pardoned zero. This year, we are up to three, but only when you include a victim of the Salem witch trials. The numbers on commutations are equally appalling.
In the past 20 years, there have been 475 applications for a commutation. We have allowed three. Again we must look to who is responsible and see two layers. The first are the Parole Board members who refuse to recommend folks for commutations.
But the second, and the one over which voters have immediate control, is the Governor’s Council. It is the Governor’s Council that again has the final say, as they approve nominations to the Parole Board.
We must ensure that our Governor’s Council is screening applicants for the Parole Board to make sure that they are ready, willing, and able to recommend inmates for clemency as appropriate.
The context within which these injustices occur is somewhat easier to understand, though no more excusable, by looking at the makeup of our judiciary. At the trial court level, the ratio of former prosecutors to former public defenders who serve as our judges is 2:1.
At the Appeals Court, it is 16:3. At the Supreme Judicial Court, it is 4:1. We must correct this imbalance, and the direct mechanism our government provides is again with the Governor’s Council.
The Supreme Court established the right to court-appointed counsel for defendants who can not afford to hire their own attorney in 1963 with Gideon v. Wainwright. Since then, we have had 51 Governor’s Councillors. Not a single one has been a full-time public defender.
The racial disparities, denial of clemency, and gross mistreatment of people with substance use disorder that I have seen over and over, in my 15 years as a public defender in Lawrence, Springfield, and Worcester, in our Superior, District, and Juvenile Courts must end.
The people of Massachusetts want our judicial system to reflect their values, and it is falling very far short. What I have seen is not at all consistent with the values of the people of Massachusetts, and certainly not in District 3, where I am running for Governor’s Council.
The status quo has been catastrophic for the vulnerable. It’s time for change on the Governor’s Council, the kind only an experienced public defender can bring.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
