When I was a young kid at times I would be upset at my father. This was because he didn’t have anyone who I could call upon to come to my aid in an “upcoming” fight against the friend I would be in a dispute with.  We’d argue back and forth about who would win if we got into a fight. I’d be cut down to size when I’d hear: “Oh yah, well my father was in the Army and he can get the Army to help me.” Others had fathers in the Navy or Marine Corps who could get their respective services to help them. My father didn’t serve in the armed forces so I never had anyone I could call to back me up.

These arguments were between us when we were six or seven years old.  By the time we reached nine or ten we had stopped suggesting that a branch of the military would get involved in our childish disputes. I think that was the last time I heard that type of childish talk until the other day. Then my youthful memories came flying back when I heard Trump say, “O.K.? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump.”  

Reading Judge Gertner’s findings in the Teddy Deegan case again in part because I was chastised for not spelling Louis Greco’s last name correctly and told I was writing “jibber jabber” when it came to that case I have to agree with her that Barboa added Louis Greco and Joseph Salvati into the murder of Deegan when the great preponderance of the evidence shows they were not there. My apologies to the friends of Greco if I suggested otherwise.

While doing this I came across a couple of things that piqued my interest. Gertner wrote that on March 6, 1962, the FBI installed electronic surveillance at the office of Raymond Patriarca. This wiretap was not authorized by court order or warrant. As a result anything the FBI learned over the wiretap could not be used in court as evidence by the government.

Who hasn’t watched The Godfather movie? Did you feel badly when Vito Corleone died at the end? Was it right to have Michael Corleone wearing a Marine Corps uniform? Did you think Dianne Keaton was properly cast as Kay Adams or would another woman have been better? How about the character Moe Greene played by Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr? Wasn’t that well done?  Were you on Michael Corleone’s team as he slowly involved himself in the family business?  Were you pleased that things worked out well for the family in the end? I was.

What is it that makes us cheer for the bad guys if they are really bad? There was the HBO series The Sopranos. I read it is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. I never watched it but I’d guess from what I heard it was a mini-Godfather with the usual Mafia type mob beating and murdering people. Why are so many people fascinated by what these criminals do?  I know it is entertainment and I enjoy it like anyone else.

When Mary took her little lamb to school and the children saw it, from what I remember as a kid, it made the children laugh and play, laugh and play, and laugh and play.

Few things we read about make us laugh and play in the sense they are so outrageously funny that not only do we laugh we find ourselves dancing around in delight at the absurdity of the remark.

Here’s once that had that effect on me. It was written by self-styled experts on James “Whitey” Bulger, Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr. Ready – are you sitting down — here it is: “In the annals of crime in the United States, Whitey Bulger today stands at the front of a line that included John Dillinger, Al Capone, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, and more recently, John Gotti. His list of victims matches or exceeds that of any other crime boss . . . .”

I’ve written before about how foolish that statement is noting that even in Boston he was behind guys like John Martorano, Steve Flemmi, Jimmy Flemmi and others.

“Oh what has become of our good old country?” that’s what the stranger asked of me.  “Once it seemed we thought alike, now it seems all we do is fight.”

“Oh, ho, ho, why you asking me? I’d think the answer is clear to see.”

The stranger then continued, “The nuttiness of Trump is very much on display, the glory that was America seems to have gone far away.  I’ve been terribly downcast and fearful for our land The people have forgotten how united we once did stand . I’m thinking back to the good old quiet days. They have gone so very far away.”

He looked about my age but something told me he was much younger. It is probably just that the years have been hard on him.  We sat there on the bench in the Common. I’m not sure why I decided to sit there. Perhaps it was because I was early for my appointment and the air had a spring-like feeling to.it. I thought as I was sitting down of an expression I heard in Japan, “If winter’s here can spring be far behind.” It always surprised me how I can remember where I first heard expressions that I treasure; or, how a scent in the air can bring back dormant memories.

In the case of Commonwealth v. Aaron J. Hernandez the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in an opinion written by Judge Elspeth B. Cypher wrote that the : “doctrine of abatement ab initio is outdated and no longer consonant with the circumstances of contemporary life, if, in fact, it ever was.” That doctrine is that if a defendant convicted of murder (or any other crime) dies before his conviction is heard on appeal then the conviction is vacated and it is to be assumed it never happened.

How does a longstanding doctrine that has been in existence in Massachusetts since its inception as a state suddenly become outdated? What does it mean that it was never consonant with the circumstances of contemporary life? When did that contemporary life begin that destroyed traditional jurisprudence?

Under Common Law if a person convicted died before his appeal was heard the conviction would be set aside as if it had never happened. The Common Law was brought into our jurisprudence from England where we accepted such doctrines as a contract needed two or more parties; or if two people agree to a contract one cannot come in later and say he didn’t agree but remained silent (silence is considered assent); or if one person stands by and lets another person build a shed on his land he cannot later come in and force him to remove it. (He is estopped from doing it because of his failure to act when he should have acted.)

One aspect of the matters involving Retired FBI Agent John Connolly who has been incarcerated in Florida where he is expected to come before the parole board when he is 99-year-old, in effect, he has been sentenced to die in prison for doing his job as an FBI agent, is whether he was authorized to let his Top Level Criminal Informants (TECI) commit crimes. The FBI has all sorts of forms that an agent is required to fill out is he is to do that but those exist only so the FBI can protect its sordid practices from public notice and throw an agent to the woodp pile whose approval of those  activities might be public.

A prominent FBI agent out of the Chicago office who wrote several books about his involvement in investigating organized crime told how they used to do black bag jobs, that is breaking into private businesses, offices and homes in order to plant listening devices. He knew these operations were approved by J. Edgar Hoover who urged his agents to do them. He wrote that he was also aware if he was caught and it became public information the FBI would deny it knew about them and call him a rogue agent.

Yesterday I pointed out the Agent John Connolly came to Boston in 1972, was put in the organized crime squad, and was made responsible for handling Top Echelon Criminal Informant (TECI) Steve Flemmi who had been informing since 1965 which was before Connolly joined the FBI. In 1975 he would list James “Whitey” Bulger as an informer and shortly thereafter he became a TECI. At that time, there was no showing that unlike Flemmi Whitey had been involved in any type of murders.

How was it Connolly was dealing with Flemmi and Whitey who were notorious criminals? Reading Boston media you would believe he had a secret side deal with them, that is, he was running rogue doing his own thing. The FBI gladly put him out there to stand alone while everyone fired shots at him; it failed as an organization to tell the truth. The truth was, and is, the FBI had developed a corrupt program called the Top Echelon Criminal Informant program (TECIP) that it has tried to hide from the public. It has never been held accountable for having done this. It still runs it today.