E-Mail This Article to a Friend Justice denied In Suffolk County, murder cases take months — even years — to come to trial

LAST FALL, the Phoenix reported on disgracefully long delays in prosecuting serious crimes, including homicides, in Suffolk County (see "Courting Trouble," News and Features, October 1, 2004). Delays of two, three, or more years were not uncommon. From an overwhelmed court system to an understaffed district attorney’s office, from a former medical examiner who couldn’t keep track of organs being held as evidence to a Boston Police Department homicide unit with serious credibility problems, the prosecution of murder in Suffolk County, the Phoenix’s David S. Bernstein found, had completely melted down.

Sadly, nothing has changed. Despite an order last year by Suzanne DelVecchio, then–chief justice of the Superior Court, to bring murder cases to trial within one year of the defendant’s arraignment, cases remain seriously backlogged. This week the Boston Globe reported that the number of felonies taking at least a year to go to trial in Suffolk County had doubled since 2001. Moreover, 163 murder suspects await trial, and most of them are in jail — presumed innocent, yet not free. One suspect has been locked up for more than four and a half years. It’s a shocking, sickening breakdown of justice that should be unimaginable — unfair to victims and their families, unfair to defendants, and a clear violation of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a "speedy trial."

It is said that justice delayed is justice denied, and that is certainly true in Suffolk County. Not only have defendants, some of whom may ultimately be found not guilty, lost their freedom, but trials are far less likely to result in a just verdict when they are held so many months and years after the crime. Evidence is lost; recollections fade; witnesses die or move away. Long delays can result in innocent people being wrongly convicted, or in criminals being improperly acquitted. What’s happening — or, rather, not happening — in Suffolk County is a crisis and a scandal. Yet no one is treating it as such.

Nor have we heard from Margaret Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. Two years ago, when an independent commission chaired by the Reverend J. Donald Monan recommended that Marshall be installed as the CEO of the court system, many saw that as little more than a ploy by Marshall to win more power for herself rather than an initiative motivated by any real concern about justice or the constitutional rights of the incarcerated. Needless to say, the plight of defendants does not resonate on Beacon Hill, either. Legislators who routinely pander to their constituents with tough-on-crime rhetoric are hardly going to spend any political capital on the least among us. Clearly, though, action needs to be taken.

Money cannot solve every problem; incompetence — and worse — must be rooted out. Nevertheless, the state’s fiscal woes of recent years, combined with an absurdly low state income-tax rate that both Republican governor Mitt Romney and the Democratic legislature refuse to raise, have left the system shamefully underfunded, utterly lacking the resources needed to administer justice — among the most basic obligations of any civilized society.

More Big Dig woes

The Big Dig has gone from a jewel of the New Boston to a national embarrassment, and news about the $14.6 billion project keeps getting worse and worse. This week we learned that Jack Lemley, a highly respected consultant brought in to review the leaking Interstate 93 tunnels, will no longer vouch for their safety — reversing what he had said during a State House hearing just four months ago. Worse, Lemley, in a letter to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, charged that the authority has refused to provide him with documents he’s requested to carry out his investigation.

That’s the worst of it — until next time. But there’s always more. On Monday, for instance, traffic on the northbound side backed up to Quincy because melting snow and ice were falling from the cables on the Zakim Bridge, making for a dangerous and frightening ride. Did no one anticipate such a possibility? If not, why not?

Governor Romney is right that Turnpike Authority chairman Matt Amorello has got to go — although, characteristically, Romney’s focus is too narrow. Ultimately a huge construction project such as the Big Dig is under the purview of the governor. And for 14 years, one Republican governor after another — Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, and now Romney — has failed to exercise the oversight necessary to bring this enormous undertaking to heel. No one blames Romney for problems that cropped up under his predecessors. But he’s been governor for two years now, and he’s still doing nothing but pointing fingers.

Recently, Attorney General Tom Reilly — a Democrat and a likely gubernatorial candidate in 2006 — volunteered for the task of finding out what went wrong with the Big Dig. So far, though, his performance has been underwhelming. Reilly was all too happy to call a news conference last week to announce the arrest of double-dipping snowplow operators. But he’s had little to say about the contractors — many of whom have contributed to Reilly’s past campaigns — who’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars on the leaking, crumbling Big Dig. On Tuesday, after Lemley’s concerns were made public, Reilly said he would consider pursuing criminal-fraud charges against Big Dig contractors Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and Modern Continental Construction Company. That’s fine, but it shouldn’t have taken the specter of collapsing tunnels to get Reilly moving.

On April 22, the US House Committee on Government Reform will hold an all-day hearing on the Big Dig, in Boston, at the request of South Boston Democratic congressman Stephen Lynch. It’s long overdue. Lynch is among the few politicians who have publicly criticized Reilly’s virtual self-appointment as the project’s chief watchdog. What’s gone wrong with the Big Dig is so mind-bogglingly awful that it’s hard to know what ought to be done. At a minimum, though, Amorello should resign or be fired. Romney should stop playing politics and start demanding some real answers. And Reilly should get out of the way.

Gays and the courts

Nearly one in every 12 Americans lives in California, which is by far the most populous state. So it was of special significance this week when San Francisco Superior Court judge Richard Kramer ruled that same-sex couples in California have a constitutional right to marry. The issue will likely be decided sometime in 2006 by the California Supreme Court, so gay and lesbian couples shouldn’t start planning their weddings yet. But Kramer’s ruling — coming a year after the stirring sight of gay marriages performed at San Francisco City Hall — was a welcome step forward.

Last November, voters in states across the country — and especially in Red America — approved measures denying same-sex couples the right to marry, and in some cases took away other rights as well. Yet the movement toward full marriage equality continues. State courts in New York, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Maryland, and Connecticut are all considering the issue.

In Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage went into effect nearly a year ago, there is still a possibility that this basic civil right could be taken away. In 2004 the legislature gave preliminary approval to a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and instead create civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. The legislature may take up the measure again sometime this fall (see "Gaining Ground," in News & Features). If it passes, it would be placed on the ballot in November 2006.

Such a move would be a mistake; if voters were actually to approve it, it would be a tragedy. Fortunately, further legislative action became less likely on Tuesday, when primary voters in two Boston legislative districts elected pro-gay-marriage Democrats — Linda Dorcena Forry and Michael Moran — to replace anti-marriage Democrats who’d left the House. Right-wing complaints about so-called activist judges ignore the constitutional purpose of the judiciary, which is to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. One’s humanity should not be subject to a referendum. Massachusetts voters have grown increasingly comfortable with the notion of gay marriage over the past year. Yet the passions that could be stirred by a well-funded hate group during an election campaign are not to be underestimated.

In Massachusetts, in California, and elsewhere, gay and lesbian couples are winning the right to live their lives just like everyone else. What the law gives, the ballot should not take away.

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