Regardless of whether or not Kerry Healey fed the Herald the Deval sister rape story, her administration is
at fault and needs to be held accountable. Joan Vennochi, as usual, lays out a clear case showing just why Kerry Healey is - at least in part - responsible for getting Deval Patrick's family involved in this election.
Under Massachusetts law, the letter Sigh received is the first step in a confidential process that includes a hearing. That is followed by classification as a Level 1, 2, or 3 sex offender. A high-risk offender gets a Level 3 status; a person at low risk of committing a sex crime would be a Level 1. The law governing release of sex offender registration information states that the public has a right to information ``only if the offender is a sex offender who has been finally classified by the board as a level 2 or level 3 sex offender."
The seven-member Sex Offender Registry Board, like all such entities, is stacked with political appointees....
Board members, who get paid at least $75,000 a year, have the awesome power to determine the future of more than 15,000 convicted sex offenders listed in the registry. This board has come under fire in the past for not doing its job when it comes to identifying thousands of serious sexual predators.
But when the case involved the brother-in-law of the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, the Romney-Healey administration was quick to notify Sigh that he must register. It also made sure this embarrassing family matter got full public disclosure -- before a hearing or official classification as a Level 2 or 3 sex offender.
A recent Healey political ad criticizing Patrick's past criminal defense work asked: ``While lawyers have a right to defend admitted cop killers, do we really want one as our governor?"
Here's my question: Do we really want a governor who hails from an administration capable of trampling the law?
Here's a shocking bit too. Kerry Healey claims she had nothing to do with this whole story - right? Well, turns out.... not so much. Here's what her campaign said (emphasis mine),
We had absolutely nothing to do with the Herald's description of this information.
Pardon me if I remain unconvinced. Apparently, while Kerry Healey questions whether or not Deval Patrick should either be
ashamed or governor, Kerry Healey's administration ought to be investigated instead of reelected.
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2 comments:
Joan's problem is that she doesn't see the big picture. Sure, if you think $75,000 a year state employees are there to do "their jobs" and state boards are established to perform certain "functions" and therefore theose who oversee the Sex Offenders Registry are supposed to be concerned about keeping us "safe," and following "the law" then sure, they're abysmal failures. In most cases, only about 99.99999999, and *only* the ones that involve their boss's political opponents.
But if you consider that the only real reason any big bad awful government entity needs to exist is so cronies can pull down a salary while getting access to private information and determining how they can best abuse their power to help their sleazy benefactors, then it's a rousing success. If Healey and Romney and Bush had a better way to find information to slime their enemies, or drum up phony pretexts for unnecessary policies that will benefit them personally, then we could bag the whole experiment right now, and then we wouldn't have to pay any taxes! Did we learn nothing from Nixon?
And why does Healey have to issue a non denial, anyway? The fact that she's number two in command of a state government from whence confidential information about her opponent's family happened to come, and that information just *happened* to fit right into her already established game plan of smears as if it had been designed that way, what's the significance of that? Does Joan think the government is communicating with her through her fillings,, too?
Well, Joan certainly has her faults, but she's been excellent for the vast majority of the election season. I was never a huge fan before the election, but now I find myself remembering to check the paper every Thursday lol.
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