Really. If you have never been to one of these meetings, you must go. Here is Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito chairing the meeting, as if she didn’t know what was going to happen.
And another of Councillor Jubinville giving a speech, which all the other councillors ignore.
Except Marilyn Devaney. Who agrees.
The Pledge.
This is the break that happens when everyone says the Pledge of Allegiance at noon. All business stops. From Wikipedia:
“The Council is composed of eight councilors and the governor or lieutenant governor, who presides over the Council. The Massachusetts Constitution specifies that “the governor, and in his absence the lieutenant governor, shall be president of the council, but shall have no vote in council: and the lieutenant governor shall always be a member of the council except when the chair of the governor shall be vacant.”[4]
The eight councilors are elected every two years, one for each of eight councillor districts, residency in the district is not a requirement. The council membership was originally non elected appointment by the governor. The state constitution upon the prompting of the American Party (Know Nothings) in 1854 was changed to make the council an[5] elected position open to all state residents.[6] The Governor’s Council districts are specially composed. Each district consists of the entirety of five contiguous Massachusetts Senate districts.”
Eileen Duff center at recent Governor’s Council meeting where she cast the deciding vote to put Karen McCarthy on the Parole Board. CEPS says do not let such turnarounds happen again. Photo by Jean Trounstine.
Dear Friends,
By now, most of you know that prosecutor Karen McCarthy was approved to the Parole Board in a 5-3 vote, with Governor’s Councillor, Eileen Duff, voting for her after she had announced earlier that she would vote against McCarthy. And while the vote was disappointing, to say the least, we were heartened by all of you who testified and came to one or both of the hearings of the Governor’s Council. Your calls, emails, and presence made an enormous difference. Many appointments have been rubber stamped, but with McCarthy’s nomination, this was not the case.
The good news is that by keeping the pressure on and by expressing our concerns about not having a balanced board, we have had an effect. On Monday, June 24, Governor Baker renominated Dr. Charlene Bonner to serve on the Parole Board. Dr.Bonner had been in holdover status for over a year, meaning she was serving on the Board without any official appointment, on day-to-day status, at the whim of the governor. So this is great news!
Our work has also helped some councillors recognize how important it is to have members with education, training and expertise in mental illness, trauma and adolescent brain development. Dr.Bonner is a forensic psychologist who has shown by her record on the Board that she believes in parole and second chances, and understands the racial dimensions of incarceration. She also was an excellent Board Chairman for a year, and under her guidance, the Board’s lifer decisions were out in a timely fashion.
While we expect that Dr. Bonner will be approved by the councillors, and we do not expect anyone to testify against her, we have seen turnarounds at the last minute from the councillors. Dr. Bonner is planning to call several support witnesses (as is customary for nominees) but we know that it is important to have a good showing at the hearing. It is crucial to signal our support for Charlene Bonner to the Governor’s Council so we ask those of you who can, to call your Councillor. But most importantly, we hope youcan show up to support her renomination. The hearing will be July 10th at 1:00pm in room 360.
We will be sending another reminder next week. Please mark your calendars, and again we thank you so much for recognizing how we need to fight for parole justice and demand a diversified Board.
MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLORS Joseph C. Ferreira – District 1 7 Thomas Drive Somerset, MA 02726 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 1 Fax: 508-230-2510 Email: jferreira@lynchlynch.com
Robert L. Jubinville – District 2 487 Adams Street Milton, MA 02186 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 2 Bus: 800-828-9010 Fax: 617-698-8004 Email: Jubinville@comcast.net
Christopher A. Iannella – District 4 263 Pond Street Boston, MA 02130 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 4 Bus: 617-227-1538 Fax: 617-742-1424 Email: caiannella@aol.com
Eileen R. Duff – District 5 8 Barberry Heights Road Gloucester, MA 01930 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 5 Bus: 978-927-8700 Fax: 617-727-6610 Email: eileenduff3@gmail.com
Terrence W. Kennedy – District 6 3 Stafford Road Lynnfield, MA 01940 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 6 Bus: 617-387-9809 Fax: 617-727-6610 Email: twkennedylaw@gmail.com
Jennie L. Caissie – District 7 53 Fort Hill Road Oxford, MA 01540 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 7 Bus: 508-765-0885 Fax: 508-765-0888 Email: jcaissie@caplettelaw.com
Mary E. Hurley – District 8 15 Fields Drive East Longmeadow, MA 01028 GC: 617-725-4015, ext. 8 Bus: 413-785-5300 Fax: 413-733-3042 Email: mhurley@pellegriniseeley.com
For “Independence Day,” please check out this article in light of prosecutor Karen McCarthy being approved for the Parole Board of Massachusetts–the fight was important and it is not over.
It begins: “IIt was quite a show in Room 157 of the Massachusetts State House last Wednesday. Not exactly a typical Governor’s Council hearing. It’s not usual for arguments to break out between councilors, or for a parole board nominee to almost dissolve into tears. But both of those things happened during this highly contentious five-hour event, a precursor to the decision of whether Karen McCarthy will gain a seat on the parole board (the vote is on Wednesday, June 26).”MORE
From The Steering Committee of the Coalition for Effective Public Safety NOTE DATE CHANGE BELOW!
The State House, Massachusetts
GOV. BAKER HAS NOMINATED YET ANOTHER CAREER PROSECUTOR TO SIT ON THE PAROLE BOARD. CALL YOUR GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLOR NOW TO OPPOSE THIS NOMINATION.
The governor has nominated Karen McCarthy, a prosecutor for the past 27 years at the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, to fill a vacancy on the Parole Board. The Parole Board has seven members and McCarthy would be the fifth one from law enforcement. She is being nominated to fill the spot left by another career prosecutor, Paul Treseler, now a judge.
TELL YOUR GOVERNOR’S COUNCILLOR: NO MORE LAW ENFORCEMENT.
Massachusetts legislators envisioned a diversified parole board when they required that persons appointed to the Board have an undergraduate degree and at least five years of experience and training in one or more of the following fields: “parole, probation, corrections, law, law enforcement, psychology, psychiatry, sociology [or] social work.” Our present Parole Board already has four members who have spent their careers in law enforcement– (Chair Gloriann Moroney, former Suffolk ADA), corrections (Sheila Dupre and Colette Santa), parole (Tina Hurley)– and one in law (Tonomey Coleman).
At present, there is only one person from human services on the Board, psychologist Charlene Bonner, who has been sitting in holdover status for a year because the governor has not re-appointed her.
When parole boards are dominated by law enforcement, hearings are often an attempt to re-try the crime. Board members lack the expertise to ask more meaningful questions about recovery from mental illness and participation in sex offender and substance use treatment programs. However, given that 80% of the incarcerated population suffers from these ailments, we desperately need people on the Parole Board who have dedicated their careers to substance use and mental health treatment, trauma informed practices and adolescent brain development.
CALL YOUR COUNCILLOR NOW: Nominations to the Parole Board must be approved by a majority vote of the eight-member Governor’s Council. We can make a difference. Act now!
● Urge your councillor to vote “no” on Karen McCarthy’s nomination.
● Tell your councillor that we need an experienced social worker, another forensic or clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist on the Board who has experience working with persons with substance use disorders, mental illness, and trauma; and understands adolescent brain development.
● Ask your councillor to confirm only those who have demonstrated a belief in redemption and value rehabilitation and transformation.
● Tell your councillor that a diverse Board combats a purely punitive approach to parole and is a necessity for fairness.
THE PAROLE BOARD’S JOB: Parole is an important public safety tool that, when properly administered, eases re-entry problems, lowers recidivism, and results in significant cost-savings. As 70 community groups noted in a 2017 letter to Governor Baker and Chief Justice Gants, it has been understood for decades that formerly incarcerated people reoffend at significantly lower rates when they receive appropriate support and supervision on parole. In Massachusetts, however, due to our very low parole rates, most parole-eligible people complete or “wrap up” their sentences in prison and transition home with no help and no oversight.
It is the job of the Parole Board to understand and predict behavior. Our system of parole only works when the Parole Board is made up of a well-rounded group of people who have the expertise necessary to properly evaluate candidates for parole. As the Parole Board gains more and more members with backgrounds in law enforcement, the parole rates drop correspondingly and precipitously. When parole rates drop, the rates of recidivism rise. A lack of diversification on the Parole Board not only leads to lower parole rates, but it also leads to less informed parole hearings and decisions. The vacancy on the Board must be filled by someone who believes in parole and second chances and who has education, training and expertise in mental illness, substance use, trauma and adolescent brain development.
● People on parole are being returned to prison for very low-level technical violations, instead of receiving appropriate treatment in the community, again leading to unnecessary incarceration.
● The Parole Board is not ruling on Commutation Petitions and Requests to Terminate Parole. Some have been pending for over three years, again leading to unnecessary incarceration.
● The Board takes up to a year to rule on parole-eligible lifers’ requests for parole. This contributes to unnecessary incarceration and is evidence of a poorly run Board.
● The Board’s failure to maximize parole supervision is extremely costly for taxpayers. According to DOC, the average annual cost of housing a state prisoner is $70,892, while the estimated cost of a year of parole supervision is less than $10,000. (The Board reported an annual cost of $5,000 in 2013.)
