THE WOMAN, who survived domestic violence, said she risked her safety, allowed herself to be vulnerable, and emotionally relived her abuse to advocate on behalf of Gov. Charlie Baker’s bill expanding the use of dangerousness hearings, which the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee sent to study, effectively killing it for this session.
“I now wonder if they listened to any of us,” said the woman, who added that it is easier to believe she was not heard than to believe she “spoke to cold, callous people who have no empathy or care for the wellbeing of our children or thousands of victims who are abused.”
“The action of the Judiciary Committee is shameful, it’s insulting, and it’s disrespectful to all of us,” she said at an emotional State House roundtable with Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito on Monday. When she heard the bill was killed, the woman said, “I felt like I was punched in the face.”
But lawmakers and advocacy groups who opposed the bill said killing the legislation was the right thing to do. They said Baker’s carefully scripted public relations tour in support of the bill made it seem as if the legislation was crafted solely to protect abused women, when in fact it represented a far larger expansion of judicial powers to incarcerate offenders deemed dangerous, along with other changes to the judicial process. Advocacy groups like the ACLU of Massachusetts and Jane Doe Inc said the legislation could increase racial inequities in the court system and insisted there was no data to support the reforms being sought.
Today, there are a limited number of offenses for which a judge can hold a hearing and order someone held pre-trial without bail on the grounds that they are considered dangerous. Baker’s bill would expand the number of offenses that can be grounds for a dangerousness hearing to add certain crimes of sexual abuse, some weapons crimes, child pornography, human trafficking, threatening violence, and others.
The bill would let a judge consider someone’s prior criminal history in determining dangerousness. Today, a judge may only consider the offense being charged at that time. It would allow dangerousness hearings to be held later in the judicial process. The bill would also make several other changes to criminal processes, including improving victim notification before someone is released, making it easier for a judge to hold someone if they violate bail conditions, creating a new felony offense of cutting off a court-ordered GPS tracking device, and require fingerprinting of anyone who is arrested regardless of the offense.
Baker, a Republican, on Monday vowed that he would continue to pursue some version of the legislation, which could potentially be attached as an amendment to other bills that are working their way through the Legislature in the final week of the session.
“My hope is that we’ll find another way to get it done,” Baker said. The governor acknowledged that the Democratic-led Legislature will not support his entire bill, but he expressed hope that there could be some “common ground” around provisions that could pass. “We’re going to continue to fight for this as long as we possibly can,” Baker said.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican, said the fight is not over and bill supporters “will look for every single opportunity to raise this issue and work towards a resolution.”
The Democratic-led Judiciary Committee vote total included nine members who voted in favor of sending the bill to study; three who reserved their rights, which means they did not take a position; and four who voted against sending the bill to study. The four who opposed sending the bill to study included Democratic Rep. Colleen Garry, Republican Rep. Alyson Sullivan, and Democratic Sens. Cynthia Creem, and John Velis.
The committee did not say which lawmakers reserved their rights. Republican Sen. Patrick O’Connor said he was among those who reserved their rights because of a procedural issue related to how the bill was voted on, but he has asked to be recorded as dissenting from the committee recommendation.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Michael Day, a Stoneham Democrat, said lawmakers will continue to work with district attorneys, survivors, and survivor groups. But he said the bill was more complicated – and the administration less willing to compromise – than Baker has suggested.
“This legislation does far more than the narrow issue that was the subject of the administration’s well-crafted public-relations tour,” Day said in a statement. “Not reflected in the governor’s portrayal of this legislation was the widespread opposition and concerns we heard from colleagues, survivors, and civil rights advocates alike about the problems with this bill; concerns that have been voiced clearly before when the Administration filed these proposals in previous sessions.”
Baker first filled the bill in 2018 and getting it passed has a been a major priority of his. This session is his last chance, since the governor is not running for reelection. Baker has held several public roundtables with survivors of domestic violence who had urged passage of the bill, arguing that it could have made a difference in keeping their abusers locked up.
At Monday’s roundtable, one woman said a prosecutor told her in 2017 that her abuser had a violent criminal history with 88 charges of assault and battery dating back to 1988. But none of that could be considered during a dangerousness hearing. She said the man would violate a restraining order or cut off a GPS tracker without fear of repercussions. Her abuser would walk into a court “with a smile and laugh, and say I’ll be sentenced to 60 to 90 days,” she said.
“My abuser knows the justice system, he laughs at the system,” she said. “Change needs to happen.”
But the bill faced strong opposition. The ACLU of Massachusetts and around 30 civil rights organizations, liberal community groups, and legal defense organizations issued a statement opposing the bill, which they said will greatly increase the number of people who can be held pre-trial and the length of time they can be held.
“These people will be held not because they are unable to afford bail but instead based on a perceived but unproven danger to society,” the groups wrote. “There is no data to support these reforms, but there is ample history of racial disparity in the criminal legal system to know that their impacts will be felt most acutely by Black and Latino individuals, families, and communities.”
Jane Doe Inc, a coalition of organizations that helps survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, said in a statement that while it recognizes the role dangerousness hearings can play in these cases, “this specific legislation included certain policies that would have harmed our communities and actually undermined the safety and wellbeing of survivors themselves.”
In legislative testimony, the organization raised concerns about racial disproportionality, the potential for less focus on the most serious cases if there are more hearings, the impact on survivors arrested because of an accusation made by their abuser, and other aspects of the bill.
“We value and respect the lived experience of every survivor whose story was shared during this process,” Jane Doe Inc said. “We also appreciate the Judiciary Committee’s thoughtfulness and intentionality, during their review of this legislation, to consider the different realities facing all those experiencing sexual and domestic violence.”
Jamie Eldridge, an Acton Democrat and the Senate chair of the Judiciary Committee, was among those who recommended sending the bill to study. Eldridge said after lawmakers rejected Baker’s bill last session, he was surprised Baker did not try to engage with them to craft a narrower bill. (Baker disputes that and said there were “many, many conversations” between legislative and administrative staff.)
Eldridge said he was swayed by the advocacy from Jane Doe and the civil liberties groups. He said he opposed the “dramatic” increase in instances when someone could serve jail time without being convicted of a crime; he worried that considering someone’s criminal history would let people be judged for a decade-old minor crime; he opposed fingerprinting all arrestees; and he said it would give prosecutors too much power to delay a trial while holding a defendant.
“What that means is you dramatically increase the power of prosecutors to detain someone for up to 180 days even though they haven’t been convicted,” Eldridge said.
While he heard the concerns of some domestic violence victims, Eldridge said, many currently do not feel like prosecutors and judges are looking out for their best interests. “A tough on crime approach doesn’t address the lack of focusing on how do we protect a victim aside from detaining someone indefinitely,” Eldridge said.