A Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker on September 9, 1999, sensed something was not right. He was commenting on the deal that John Martorano had made with the government where he would end up doing 12 years for admitting to 20 murders. He noted how the three black victims seemed to be invisible. He wrote: Federal prosecutors had a chance to restore their humanity, to say that even after all the years that have passed their lives and death mattered. And yesterday they blew it.” 

He note Martorano was not charge with their murders but racketeering, race fixing and extortion. He wrote: “You can commit one of the worst massacres in this city’s bloody history and pay not price at all. The lives of Smith. Dickson, and Barrett meant virtually nothing.”

He quoted retired Boston Police detective Eddie Walsh who said: “John Martorano killed an awful lot of black people. He practically used black people for target practice in Roxbury.” 

Where Adrian Walker had it wrong was putting in all on the federal prosecutors. The whole community made them into non-persons. Where was the follow-up by the media asking questions about it? Or, the other law enforcement community? Or, anyone in the white community?

A few thoughts.  We’ve  now heard from a third woman who alleges that Brett Kavanaugh was a big drinker in high school and involved in a group of boys who gang raped women.

That is not going to give the GOP Senate majority pause from what I now understand. The GOP majority is rushing ahead to a vote to send his nomination to the full senate without regard to the reputation of the Supreme Court.

I’ve noted before that Kavanaugh’s failure to ask for a full investigation to exonerate himself so that he goes on the Supreme Court without this cloud hanging over he head is bothersome. In my experience that would be the first thing an innocent person would seek. Some have come up with reasons for him not to do it but none of them are substantial as far as I can see.

Kavanaugh claimed eleven times in his unprecedented interview that he wanted a fair process. The question is does he?

The insouciance of the law enforcement community and the news media to the murders of Herbert Smith, Elizabeth F. Dickson and Douglas Barrett is hard to imagine. It was far from front page news; it was far from investigated; and no one from the DA’s office bestirred himself to wonder what happened to these three black victims.

Martorano writes about how he murdered them. Of course, he doesn’t know he’s murdering a young girl and a young boy, he suggests he thought they were three men and he had to act quickly. The police reported that “each had been shot several times in the head”; Martorano says he took each one out with one shot which seems more likely.

This was not a well done crime. Clues were all over the place if only one was interested in looking for them. Herbert Smith worked at Basin Street South a nightclub owned by Martorano and some Mafia guys. According to Martorano “the club kept changing hands, going back and forth between the Martoranos and the Lamattinas . . . . But as far as everybody in the city was concerned, Basin Street would always be Johnny Martorano’s place.”

I have to add my two cents not that anyone needs to read anything more about the attempted appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. But at this point I’ve got a few observations that impel me to speak up. What has been an unusual process all along has now turned into a three-ring circus that will soon shut down.

I’ve posted before that I thought Kavanaugh’s appointment would go down in flames noting “one more well placed shot we can figure his nomination is to explode.” I wrote that before Christine Blasey Ford jumped into the picture. My problem with Kavanaugh was that so much of his background seemed to be hidden by the Republican majority. In doing that, the suspicion that he was involved in something not so kosher to today’s America was heightened. I don’t think though that it had anything to do with his sexual activity but the failure of the Republicans to be totally open about him gives some reason to believe that was the case.

Going through the Boston Globe archives I found there were six articles that included the name of Elizabeth F. Dickson since January of 1988. One of these was on March 17, 1988. That was on State Treasurer Crane Unclaimed Money list. Is it a wonder it was there, she had been dead since January 6, 1968. There were only three about any investigation into her death. One on September 9, 1999, she was mentioned in a column by Adrian Walker..

Under the name Douglas Barrett there were fifteen listings. Of those only three related to the January 6, 1968 incident and he two was mentioned in Walker’s column. There would have been four mentions of him except one Globe article named him Douglas Kendall. He lived on Kendall Street so that was understandable if you don’t have a particular interest in the matter.

The third person who was involved in the matter that forever bound their names together was Herbert Smith. He too had as few as four mentions in matters involving how he died. Considering their deaths, it seemed they were greeted with a big yawn. It was not the typical response one would expect from such an incident.

On October 12, 1915, in New York City, Teddy Roosevelt spoke to an assembly of the Knights of Columbus holding its annual event on Columbus Day. It was an important event to have an ex-president addressing it. Teddy’s speech has been billed as the “Unhypenated America” Speech but it was so much more.

On September 20, 2018, and article in the New York Times noted the prominent evangelist Ralph Reed said: “If Republicans were to fail to defend and confirm such an obviously and eminently qualified and decent nominee, then it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November.”  After noting how other evangelical leaders are supporting Kavanaugh, the paper said:  “To be sure, evangelicals leaders are trying to push Senate leaders to stiffen their resolve to force the Kavanaugh confirmation to a vote at a time when it may be politically perilous to do so. And the likelihood that the base will stay home in November and risk handing the Senate to the Democrats may  be relatively low, given how popular Mr. Trump remains with white evangelicals.”

The problem with coming to Boston with little knowledge of the truth as English did makes him end up writing: “The framing of innocent citizens in a capital-murder case by withholding evidence and suborning perjury – all to protect notorious criminals who were government informants – became the dirty secret of federal law enforcement in New England . . . .” 

Ignorance is bliss; it also allows the spreading of scurrilous rumors that ignorant people accept.  English would continue, “it is difficult to know how many . . . assistant U.S. attorneys . . . were in on the conspiracy.” 

Hardly is that difficult. The answer is none. They had nothing to do with the prosecution of he Deegan case. There is no showing any federal prosecutor knew about the evidence that was being offered in the case. Two agents of the FBI might have known, Paul Rico and Dennis Condon. They might have known that Barboza was giving his friend Jimmy “the Bear” Flemmi a pass and putting Joe Salvati a guy he did not like in his place. As for the rest of five defendants, the had no reason to figure he was lying if in fact he was. The Massachusetts Supreme Court reviewed the evidence and found it sufficient to uphold the conviction of all the defendants.

After Whitey’s arrest in 2011 English’s interest in the case was again piqued. He decided to make a telephone call to incarcerated FBI agent John Connolly who is doing time on the Florida panhandle having been wrongly convicted of the murder of John Callahan. He persuaded Connolly to speak to him on the telephone. Why Connolly would do this is a mystery because his 2005 book did a real job on him painting him as a little better than the murderous Whitey.

English would write an article based on that conversation. Connolly would end up in solitary confinement for 50 days for breaking prison rules by talking to him. English ended up with a story in Newsweek Magazine.

His last sentence in the story is: “Amid the uncertainty, one thing is clear; as the U.S. Justice Department prepares to put on trial one of the most murderous gangsters in the last half century, it is in no position to claim the moral high ground.” Two mistakes in one sentence: Whitey was far from being “one of the most murderous gangsters” and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had no problem claiming the moral high ground. English because of his recent foray into Boston was totally confused about the DOJ’s involvement in matters.