The House on Saturday rejected a Gov. Charlie Baker plan to overtake how prison defendants could be deemed harmful and detained, spiking his last-minute effort to connect the controversial measure to a different prison justice reform push.
The House voted 31-122 to shoot down a state finances modification Baker despatched again (H 5112), which appended a narrower model of the so-called “dangerousness” invoice lawmakers already despatched to a dead-end examine to a provision providing free communication to incarcerated individuals and their households.
Baker and his deputies argued the modification represented a possible compromise with the Legislature, paring down the unique invoice (H 4290) that had prompted vital issues amongst civil rights advocates, however Judiciary Committee Co-chair Rep. Mike Day on Saturday known as the rewrite “a bad proposal that, if enacted in its current form, would likely substantially increase the rate and duration of pretrial detention.”
“This current proposal would give prosecutors an unbelievable amount of power by enabling them in effect to leverage a plea bargain offer with the threat of pretrial imprisonment during the course of the trial itself,” Day stated. “It’s unnecessary.”
The governor’s modification, which drew continued opposition from teams just like the ACLU of Massachusetts and from the Legislature’s Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, would have expanded the record of offenses for which prosecutors may search a dangerousness listening to and detain a suspect earlier than trial.
It additionally would have allowed a prosecutor to hunt a dangerousness listening to any time through the course of, not simply throughout arraignment, opened the door for a dangerousness detention to final during a case, criminalized removing of a GPS ankle bracelet and required victims to be notified earlier than somebody charged with abuse is launched.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”