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Posted on 11/27/2007 4:10:05 PM PST by Reaganesque
Mitt Romney has had a tough week. Just days after someone push-polled Iowans in an ugly display of bigotry, a new attack has floated into the blogosphere regarding Romney's judicial nominations as Governor in Massachusetts. One of his appointments, Kathe Tuttman, released a violent offender on his own recognizance on an assault complaint -- and the suspect promptly fled to Washington and killed a young newlywed couple:
The father of a Washington woman slaughtered along with her new husband - allegedly at the hands of a convicted Bay State killer - said his daughter’s accused murderer never should have been released from prison here.
“It’s because of stupidity in Massachusetts that my daughter is dead,” said Darrel Slater, 55, who is preparing to bury his daughter, Beverly Mauck, 28, and her husband Brian Mauck, 30.
The couple was executed in their home in rural Graham, Wash., Saturday after an alleged argument with Daniel Tavares Jr., 41, who in 1991 pleaded guilty to hacking his mother to death with a carving knife in their Somerset home in served 16 years for that crime.
Tavares finished his sentence on June 14, but was immediately re-arrested on a warrant charging him with two counts of assaulting Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center prison guards during his troubled stint behind bars, Department of Correction officials said.
Worcester prosecutors requested $50,000 cash bail for each of those charges, an amount approved by Clinton District Court Judge Martha Brennan, according to court documents.
But Tavares appealed the bail and on July 16, Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman released him on personal recognizance. Tavares was freed and fled the state to marry and live in a Washington trailer with Jennifer Lynn Tavares, who met the convict at Walpole after answering an inmate personal ad. He defaulted on a July 23 court date, prosecutors said.
The e-mails I have received about this today, based on a report at Free Republic, call this Romney's Willie Horton event. Romney's opponents there and elsewhere claim these murders are a "direct result of Romney's liberal appointments to the bench," and a foretaste of what will come from a Romney presidency. Unfortunately, this is quite an exaggeration.
First, though, one cannot overstate the foolishness and outright stupidity of Judge Tuttman. Here we have a man who carved up his own mother charged with two more violent offenses of a milder variety just after his release from prison on the original charge. The $50,000 bail requested by prosecutors seems rather reasonable, perhaps even somewhat low. Sending him off on an OR basis is simply ludicrous, and Tuttman should answer for this strange decision.
This, however, differs from the Horton issue with Michael Dukakis in two important ways. First, judicial appointments in Massachusetts work very differently than at the federal level. As with New York City, a judicial panel recommends a few candidates for each opening to the Governor, who rarely if ever works outside the system. These candidates get reviewed by the panel through their records, but with their names removed, in order to ensure fairness. Tuttman would have appeared to be a good candidate; she had a good track record as a prosecutor, and had won convictions in some higher-profile cases.
Romney's critics then complained that he hadn't appointed more women to the bench. He pressed the Judicial Nominating Commission to provide more potential female candidates for appointments. This demonstrates that Romney had only small latitude in selecting these candidates.
The Horton incident stuck to Dukakis for other reasons. Horton raped a woman and stabbed her fiance after being released on a work-furlough program, even though he had already committed murder and had a life sentence. Dukakis had supported this program as governor, claiming it as an important tool for criminal rehabilitation, while critics castigated him and the state for allowing lifers with no possibility of release outside of clemency into the furlough program. (Horton had been sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years.) In fact, Dukakis had vetoed a bill prohibiting the entry of lifers into the rehab program -- which would have kept Horton behind bars where he belonged.
Romney's appointment in Tuttman certainly turned out badly, but one has to understand the context of that appointment. The nomination process has burdensome limits, and the selection of a successful prosecutor for that slot would certainly have given some confidence that the new judge would err on the side of caution from the bench. Tragically, that hope was dashed and two people have had their lives senselessly ended -- but that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the judge herself, and of course the murderer.
* On October 20, 1987, Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The sentencing judge refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released. This man should never draw a breath of free air again."
* Variations of this story were repeated on several occasions in Massachusetts. Confessed rapist John Zukoski, who had brutally beaten and murdered a 44 year-old woman in 1970, became eligible for furloughs and was eventually paroled in 1986. A few months later he was arrested and indicted yet again for beating and raping a woman.
* The Massachusetts inmate furlough program actually began under Governor Francis Sargent in 1972. But in 1976 Governor Dukakis vetoed a bill to ban furloughs for first-degree murderers. It would, he said, "Cut the heart out of inmate rehabilitation."
* The program, in essence, released killers on an "honor system" to see if they would stay out of trouble. On the average, convicts who had been sentenced to "life without parole" spent fewer than 19 years in prison. By March 1987, Dukakis had commuted the sentences of 28 first-degree murderers.
* Of over 80 Massachusetts convicts listed as escaped and still at large, only four had actually "escaped." The rest simply walked away from furloughs, prerelease centers and other minimum-security programs. These convicts included murderers, rapists, armed robbers and drug dealers.
* First-degree murderer Armand Therrien was transferred from a medium security prison to a minimum-security one, which made him eligible for a work-release program. He walked off and vanished in December 1987.
* When citizens began to protest, Dukakis and his aides defended the program relentlessly. One commissioner stated that furloughs were a "management tool" to help the prisons. Unless a convict had hope of parole, he argued, "we would have a very dangerous population in an already dangerous system." But, critics wondered, if armed guards can't control dangerous killers inside locked cells, how are unarmed citizens supposed to deal with them?
* It was through the efforts of a grassroots organization, Citizens Against Unsafe Society, that the issue was finally brought before the people. With mounting pressure from his own aides to sign a bill ending the program - for fear that it would hurt his presidential campaign - Dukakis signed the legislation in April of this year.
So, no, there are no substantive parallels here other than superficial ones. Mike Dukakis vehemently defended the existing program of allowing weekend furloughs for murderers calling it a necessary part of "inmate rehabilitation" and a good "management tool" for the prisons. No such program exists in MA today so the judge's decision was entirely her own and Mitt Romney has clearly denounced this decision and has called for her resignation. Mike Dukakis was culpable for Willie Horton because it was the Dukakis administration's policy to allow murderers weekend furloughs; a policy they defended vigorously until they saw that it was hurting his presidential bid. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, had a single, former employee make a extremely poor decision. The two situations are very, very different and this story will, in all likelihood, be dead and gone by the end of the week next week.
What a perfect description of Mitt Romney!
Yeah, I posted a similar article on this yesterday - Romney had no idea that this judge he was appointing was a closeted moonbat - there was nothing in her background to indicated she was otherwise.
Regardless of whether one supports Romney, this attack on him is unfair.
“Romney had no idea that this judge he was appointing was a closeted moonbat - there was nothing in her background to indicated she was otherwise.”
She is a registered democrat, a feminist that donated to Clinton’s leftist cabinet member Robert Reich, when he ran for governor in 2002.
She was a Romney affirmative action appointment, married to a liberal defense attorney.
She was Romney’s choice, a republican does not have to be a mind reader when it comes to not appointing registered democrats.
I do hope Romney got ahead of BOR and is going on his show or something, ticked me off BOR trying to make it “a moment”...
I can imagine Reagan, in the pic in the background, muttering a few choice words at Romney.
Point, then. Anyone who supported Robert Reich for anything is unqualified to serve.
I think it’s far more likely that she convinced Romney she was really “a moderate” but he should have known.
(Sigh) Thompson or Huckabee, then.
".. However, there’s a growing chorus of voices speculating Romney push polled himself. “I smell a dirty trick. I suspect a pro-Romney motive to inoculate against future use of the religious issue and to breed sympathy for Romney … a 20-minute call is the work of an amateur. The long call is designed to get ALL the negatives out, to put them off limits for future attacks,” Roger Stone — a master of Republican dirty tricks — told The Politico’s Jonathan Martin. Stone pointed out that Robert F. Kennedy was behind anti-Catholic campaign tricks — calls and literature — to help get the first Catholic president elected. An anonymous website attacking Fred Thompson with ties to the Romney consultants in South Carolina earlier this cycle suggests such earnestness may not be below Romney campaigners..."
The Seattle Times had an article today (Nov. 27th) that made things even more disturbing. The killer did NOT call in (he was supposed to stay with his sister in Mass.) so a warrant for his arrest was put out by the same judge, but an order of extradition was not made due to the cost of returning him to Mass. if he was arrested out of state.
Mass. then alerted the state of Washington and a trooper was on a stake-out of the guy’s new wife’s home. (A trailer at her brother’s house as I recall). The trooper spoke with neighbors but did not tell them that he was there looking for the guy, and did not say that he was a killer that fled his parole. After not seeing him for two days the trooper gave up.
Oh - nobody bothered to tell the local sheriff or police either - but it wouldn’t have mattered I suppose. The trooper was told not to arrest the killer as the warrant didn’t carry any weight in Washington because of the non-extradition order. Remember - it was too expensive.
Just what does that have to do with the topic at hand?
Yep , Mr. Perfect screwed up , and there is no one to throw under the bus this time .
He has no trouble shredding others when they make a mistake , but this one is his baby .... hehehe
With the visceral hatred that some Fredheads, Paulbots, and the lone remaining Alan Keyes supporter in the entire country feel for Mr. Romney, this story will continue forever. The fact that there is no basis or justification for the story to continue will have no bearing on how these people behave.
Bill
Get it right , i’m a Fredbot !
.... and Romney is still a Liberal ....
Perhaps you didn't read the whole article:
These candidates get reviewed by the panel through their records, but with their names removed, in order to ensure fairness. Tuttman would have appeared to be a good candidate; she had a good track record as a prosecutor, and had won convictions in some higher-profile cases.It sounds like the name, party affiliation, etc. would not be included in the information available to Mitt when he picked her.
It may not have been Romney’s policy to release dangerous psychopaths on their own recognizance, but he should have known that the woman he was appointing believed in restorative justice. A Democrat on was quoted in an article on NRO, saying that Tavares would not have murdered the WA couple if Romney had enacted legislation for rehabilitation of prisoners.
It is not just the appointment of a liberal judge, it is the fact that Romney made no effort to reinforce the rule of law in Mass. The Seattle Timers reported this morning that Mass. authorities had asked the WA authorities to keep an eye on Tavares, but that warrant did allow for extradition. Mass. didn’t want the guy back!
“It sounds like the name, party affiliation, etc. would not be included in the information available to Mitt when he picked her.”
“By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | April 9, 2006
With an abundance of judicial vacancies likely this year, Governor Mitt Romney has seized control of the way judges are nominated in Massachusetts, weakening a 35-year-old panel intended to evaluate candidates without regard to politics.
In a series of executive actions, Romney has stripped the Judicial Nominating Commission, a panel of 21 lawyers, of its long-held power to evaluate candidates’ fitness for the bench, restricting their role to a cursory review of educational and professional experience. The changes strengthen Romney’s ability to put his own stamp on the state’s judiciary, as he prepares a possible run for president in 2008.
Romney’s actions have stunned lawyers and judges in Massachusetts because the governor made a point of elevating the role of the Judicial Nominating Commission when he came to office in 2003, invoking John Adams as he pledged a ‘’squeaky clean process that has no room for politics and favors.”
“’’It guts the JNC,” said Patrick J. King, a retired Superior Court judge who cochairs a panel on judicial issues for the Boston Bar Association. ‘’You don’t need a JNC at all if all they’re going to do is check to make sure they’re members of the bar and have been practicing law for 10 years.” “
Since its creation by Republican Governor Francis W. Sargent, the Judicial Nominating Commission interviewed clerks, lawyers, clients, and judges to assess a candidate’s temperament, intellect, collegiality, and work ethic. Sargent was seeking to minimize political influence in the selection of judges by turning to a broad panel of lawyers to screen candidates, and the process remained intact for the five governors that succeeded Sargent. But in a letter to the commission in February, Romney said, ‘’I reserve to myself the responsibility to evaluate judicial temperament and philosophy.”
‘’For the bar in Massachusetts, and for the judiciary, it’s very disconcerting to see all the improvements in the system over the last 30 years going down the tubes because of his political aspirations,” King said.”
“Legal observers say the shift could provide Romney his best opportunity yet to burnish his conservative credentials by naming a crop of right-leaning lawyers to the bench.”
...........................................................
By Russell Nichols and Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff | April 27, 2006
“Governor Mitt Romney, under pressure to name more women to the bench, yesterday nominated three current or former prosecutors and a top official from the Menino administration in what aides boasted is the largest number of female candidates ever brought forward at once.”
“’’The governor felt he wasn’t getting enough female and minority candidates,” said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. ‘’The governor is interested in making sure that appointments to the bench, to the extent possible, reflect the diversity of the community at large.”
“Tuttman and Hopkins are registered Democrats. Lyons is a Republican. Wright is registered as unaffiliated with any political party.
An official from the Massachusetts Republican Party said yesterday that the affiliations of the nominees have no bearing on their abilities.”
“Romney has argued that political views don’t matter when it comes to enforcing the law. The legal community celebrated the governor’s new rules for the Judicial Nominating Commission, including a ‘’blind” first phase of the selection process that removes names from applications to ensure that candidates are judged on merits alone.”
We keep hearing that, NP. “This is the one that’ll get him, hee hee!”
Yet it just never quite happens...
You are right....this isn’t a prisoner Romney let out of jail........he just named a liberal nutcake judge......now THAT is something I worry about for the Supreme Court.
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