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DA defends second chance for people not charged with major offenses: Not everybody is Charlie Baker's son
By adamg on Fri, 04/05/2019 - 5:02pm
When it comes to criticism from Beacon Hill of her decision to generally not prosecute people arrested for 15 low-level crimes, Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is having none of it, and she's looking at you and your son, Mr. Baker:
Here is the video. @NBC10Boston @NECN pic.twitter.com/pZB5Hqkp0O
— Sean Colahan (@SeanColahan) April 5, 2019
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Comments
Love it!!!!!
You go girl, keep calling out white rich male entitlement !!!!
Maybe you could prosecute the Baker kid ???
Being grabby by men isn't acceptable by Biden or the Baker boys.
#metoo
#yougogirl!!!!
#dontbackdown
Gee, the honeymoon is over.
Gee, the honeymoon is over.
Not for nothing
But it still really sucks if you're the victim of a "low impact" crime. Often it means loosing several hundred to thousands of dollars and/or suffering from trama.
I'm all about 2nd chances. One wishes there was some middle ground between dismissed charges and a life long crimal record. Just repaying the victim when there's a way to do so would be a start.
The full list of DTP charges
(Taken directly from the ACLU case summary)
All of these fall under the discretion of the prosecutor, which is to say they CAN prosecute any of the above charges if, for example, the defendant is accused of multiple of these charges at once, or the given offense is especially heinous. With the notable exception of motor vehicle offenses, which I think should be prosecuted each and every time with no hope of a plea bargain, I'm having trouble finding exactly which of these offenses are causing their victims trauma or financial loss (which are both litigated in civil court, BTW, which is unaffected by criminal statute). Which of these, specifically, do you think is worth destroying a person's life over? Shoplifting less than $250 worth of merchandise? B&E with no aggravating charges? You could probably make an argument for "wanton/malicious destruction of property," except again for the fact that this charge is capped at $250 worth of damage and has a big brother, "Willful and Malicious Destruction of Property," which covers INTENTIONAL damage to property.
So, again, per the ACLU report: each of these charges are 3-5 times more likely to be pressed against black Boston residents than white residents. A conviction or plea bargain for any of them is enough to ruin the defendant's ability to ever again hold a job or keep custody of his/her kids. What, specifically in that list of charges, do you think is severe enough to warrant destroying a (likely minority) family?
Really?
Shoplifting: The store looses money, particularly if it's a small independent store.
B & E: They broke something which is going to need to be fixed. Doors and windows don't fix themselves.
Larceny: That's a fancy word for theft. $250 ain't millions but it's still serious money to most.
Destruction of property: Is property worthless?
My point is there needs to be a middle ground between "lifelong crimal record" and "victim gets shafted". I fully agree minorities get the short end of the stick. That's why there needs to be more options which address both the accused and the victim.
Heard of them
Insurance? Restitution? Heard of them?
Where’s your evidence that this change in policy causes a rise is petty crime? How does wasting money prosecuting and incarnating these people save us any money? She’s being conservative and saving us money.
How are her policies even really much different than Conley’s. Y’all and just hate her honesty and seeing a black woman run shit.
Huh?
I'm not in any way opposed to her policies. I'm opposed to the lack of options. Someone should not be branded for life because they did something dumb. Nor should a victim not get any justice when they need to spend time and money dealing with a problem they didn't create.
There is an opportunity to
There is an opportunity to mediate a solution that restores the victims loss without putting a charge on the perpetrators records. Too bad magistrate hearings Have been vilified as secret courts.
Great to see two more liberals trying to destroy each other
It's fun to watch this pattern of liberals attempting to destroy each other. Last week Elizabeth Warren and someone named Amy Klobuchar (sp?) among others piling onto poor Joe Biden after a Bernie supporter strategically raised the long dormant
unwanted"affectionate" touching issue. This week it's Rachel Rollins being attacked by Charlie Baker, who may be more liberal than her, then Rollins striking back, going for the jugular. Of course, nothing will top 1988 when Al Gore raised the sadistic weekend furlough program for murderers, eventually destroying Dukakis or Dukakis's camp shopping around the now infamous Joe Biden plagiarism video that ended Biden's campaign. Nice to see it at the local level.Early release from the facility Fish?
with your usual hateful, lying diatribe
Yes, intra-party debate is a terrible thing
Since you mock intra-party debate then countries that have been ruled by a single party where dissent was not allowed under penalty must be right up your alley. Do you ever look in the history books at the countries where that would be true? Maybe you should, because that's the side of history you favor and where you will end up. Your descendants will end up either ashamed of or mocking your memory.
Would have to agree with O
Would have to agree with O-Fish liberals need more unity and less infighting. Thanks for the comment. Not sure Charly Baker counts as a liberal, just more of an educated conservative
Don't worry, FISH
We've still got plenty of time left to lace up our Birkenstocks, join hands, sing kumbaya, and throw rocks at fascists when they try to establish a foothold here. I'll see you out there, buddy!
B & E is a pretty serious
B & E is a pretty serious stand alone offense. Have you ever had your house broken into? It can be a pretty psychologically damaging. It’s something I have personally experienced and you never really get over it.
You should also ask smaller businesses owners how they feel about this. A local convenience store in Dorchester already struggling to compete with the CVS’s of the world. A lot of them also have to deal with rampant trespassing and shoplifting (trust me, it happens.) 12 years ago I was assigned to C-11 and the mall strip of 500 Geneva has, and continues to be, a constant problem. A very large population of transient drunk people habitually steal and linger outside all those stores. We weren’t out to arrest them, but we always at least had the implied threat that if they didn’t cooperate, we could and that they’d be prosecuted. Discretion is an important aspect of our job, and this list handcuffs us (pun intended).
- a Boston Cop
Arrest v prosecution?
My understanding for a case where someone needs to be removed forcibly, they could still be arrested and released without charge, and the prosecutor can still charge in specific cases. Am I missing something?
Though yeah B&E I'm iffy on not prosecuting by default. Maybe should be deferred or declined in many particular cases, but prob best to assume prosecution there.
Just suppose you are the victim of one of these
You are a poor struggling legal immigrant trying to become the next Kraft, or Macy, Ford, Bell, Watson, or Wang, etc.
Your entry point is a small shop selling things the community needs, a small local restaurant or tavern, or a small factory making what you hope might become the next Apple.
Along comes one or more people who:
(Taken directly from the ACLU case summary)
The rest mostly follow from the above and the necessary reaction of the police
This so-called DA should have to live with the above for a few months -- she just might then learn something useful for the community
Not appropriate at all.
If she wants to defend her decisions, go for it, but referencing allegations her office has not charged is not appropriate, no matter who a target or their relatives may be. White, black or yellow.
She is on a back foot and facing appropriate backlash for putting in writing that certain actions presumptively get a free pass, even though a free pass may not be what she actually has in mind.
She is now talking up the discretionary decision making of her staff, largely the same staff she bashed six months ago.
Not mention the point?
The controversy is exactly about who is not charged with crimes and Baker deserves criticism.
KO in the first round
Whether you agree with her or not...she just rope-a-doped the Governor.
When he gets up and dusts himself off, he may not want to consider a re-match.
That was a decisive victory...
Not sure what you think "rope
Not sure what you think "rope-a-dope" means, but pretty sure you don't know what it means.
The "Literal Police" are on scene
Haha...ok Champ...
I will bite...why don't you enlighten everyone (in the Universal Hub Comments Section) on what "Rope a Dope" actually means.... and then please explain how I miss used it...(in my comment in the Universal Hub Comment Section)
We certainly cannot allow such an injustice to stand uncorrected....(in the Universal Hub Comments Section)...and should most certainly use the correct boxing terms (in the Universal Hub Comments Section).
Please be as clear as possible...cite where necessary...
Awwww.... glad to help. Here
Awwww.... glad to help. Here you go:
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=rope-a-dope+definition
As for how you misused it? "KO" was an understandable, if debatable, figure of speech to describe Rollins' comments toward Baker. "Rope-a-dope" doesn't make sense as an analogy because she wasn't in an analogous situation - she wasn't in a defensive posture, back against the ropes, taking attacks on her guard to make her opponent tire themselves out. She and the other party were exchanging little volleys, barbs and potshots - which might suggest other boxing and sports metaphors, but not rope-a-dope.
TLDR
I think you just rope-a-doped yourself.
You lose the internet for the day.
I think the new DA just made
I think the new DA just made an enemy of the governor, not the best way to start.
If it gets too heated for her
She could always just pop onto a delayed MBTA train for a while, and the Governor will forget she exists
Rollins took 73% of the vote
to Michael Maloney's 17%. Somehow I don't think she's too worried about bringing down the wrath of the Republican governor.
It's true, DA is an elected office as is Gov.
Anybody know if Baker's Sec. Turco or any of his predecessors have ever reached out to a DA and told him/her how to do their job before Turco did it to Rollins?
She accountable to voters not to the Gov's Secretary. Turco is appointed, he's accountable to the governor.
She has just won herself my lifelong support
In 20 seconds she perfectly summarized everything that's wrong with the system.
agreed
it seems there are a number of
commenters with no clue how the criminal justice system really works, especially for poor whites and POC. Cheers to the Prosecutor!
Just another step in the
Just another step in the erosion of society. This new and improved plan just dilutes the threshold of what is acceptable behavior and encourages predatorial conduct Maybe we should go back to the days of the wild west and get with the stand your ground law.
This is nothing in the erosion of society story
If we take the basic meaning of erosion - things disintegrating, soil falling away - then a question is what causes the erosion? Along a creek it's due to too much water for flow or storms breaking away the soil. It's also about weak boundaries that don't prevent the soil from crumbling or falling away.
Boundaries help keep people together. Take away the boundaries and groups fall apart. What removes the boundaries in urban environments? Cars that allow people to quickly escape problems instead of having to deal with them. Television, computers and all the other devices that make it easier to pretend that we don't need to be part of each other's lives or support each other. Alcohol and drug abuse which dissolves addicted individuals' characters to their lowest levels of mean survival. Religious organizations that favor superstition over science in speaking to the issues of morality and character. Religious organizations that preach do what they say not what they do.
By the time a person comes to the attention of law enforcement there has been far greater erosion of their ability to be a positive force in society. Punishment and criminal records can not rebuild what is eroded. Rebuilding an individual who was broken down by our own society - whether by poverty, dysfunctional families and neighborhoods, or the absurdity of being a nation of untold wealth but where a tiny fraction enjoys that wealth while millions scrape the bottom every day just to get by.
Makes a person wonder if we are back in medieval times.
By acceptable behavior do you
By acceptable behavior do you mean white people getting away with it as long as POC keep getting shafted?
Rachael vs Charlie
Why would Baker spar with Rachael? He should have discussed these issues with the heads of the police forces that he commands in Suffolk County. Chief Kenneth Green of the Transit Police and Kerry Gilpin the colonel of the State Police both of whom are big supporters of Rachael Rollins. They should be interviewed and they could explain to the public why she is right. Chief Green convinced his transit police unions to endorse Rachael in her election the only police unions to support her.
Guess how the majority of the
Guess how the majority of the Transit Police found out they were backing Rollins. I’ll just tell you, by reading about it online. No one was asked and there was no vote. It was just an unexpected kick in the ass.