Pam who comments here is to blame for my rant this morning. She wrote indicating she was confused over the Boston Herald’s headline and wondered if it was true. She said: “The BH website’s front page headline indicates that Brennan asked Morris “if WB “offered” to kill his wife.” What the Headline said is: “Ex-FBI agent denies Whitey offered ‘to get rid’ of wife.”
I’ve never seen a headline so opposite the truth as that. The evidence was that Hank Brennon the defense lawyer asked the ex-FBI Agent John Morris if he asked Whitey to kill his wife during their bitter divorce. Whitey told him he didn’t do those things. Morris, who was like a lying machine, as expected, denied such a thing had happened.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised with the headline since it comes from the Boston media that as we have pretty definitely concocts false story after false story about Whitey and inundates its readers (mostly over 60) with them. But to be so bold as to twist the story 180 degress and put the lie in the headline has to be a new low in journalism.
When I got up this morning to see if that headline was still in place, I was greeted with another one, almost equally bad: “Letting accused hide is ‘a slap in the face.’ I think the local media has been bumping into the FBI’s butt for so long that it is beginning to think like the FBI, “if it is not in writing it doesn’t exist, and what’s is writing is all that exists.” I sometimes think its a good thing the Bill of Rights was in writing and the FBI doesn’t have the opportunity to edit it.
I digress. The introductory line to the latest article reads: “The rampant Bay State practice of letting defendants hide their faces in court is raising outrage among legal experts and victims advocates who say the public has a right to see accused criminals.” I scratch my head at this when I think every day it is reporting on a case from federal court involving James Bulger where the court forbids any photography of a defendant, covered face or not, yet I don’t see a headline complaining about that.
The legal experts cited in the article are a Laurie Meyers who came up with the ‘slap in the face’ line. Among other treasured tidbits is her statement, “If you are charged with a crime, you are there to face the music.” Laurie ought to be told about the presumption of innocence. You don’t get punished just because you’re charged — I think its some other countries that follow that practice. One other legal expert is cited and that is Gerry Leone former Middlesex DA and a good guy. He must have been having an off day.
He said defense attorneys should have to explain why their clients should be able to hide thier face. He too wants to throw out that messy presumption. What makes the suggestion of these so-called experts even more preposterous is that some people can be excused from showing up at arraignment and some arraignments can be made over closed circuit cameras from jail or at a hospital bed.
Next we’ll be reading a headline in the Boston Herald, “Some Legal Experts Outraged That Accused Is To Be Given a Trial.” I’m sure they can come up with a couple of people who’d support that.
Which leads me to my other rant that I know you are all sick of hearing but I just have this feeling it’s not right to have a person killed, or what looks like murdered, and the public be unable to find out anything about it.
It has been six weeks since the FBI began investigating the homicide of Ibragim Todashev. He was killed in front of at least six law enforcement officers being drilled at least six times by one or more of them. We don’t know why? The FBI has told us to “get lost,” it is only responsible to itself and not the public.
All we have learned since then is that Tatiana Igorevna Gruzdeva in whose aparment Todashev was living and was his girlfriend was arrested a week before he was killed. She has been in custody since and has now been deported back to Moldova. The immigration officials refuse to discuss her case. The cited aricle notes: “Sadly, the mainstream media does not seem to be interested in asking tough questions in the Ibragim Todashev case, or the case of Tatiana Gruzdeva.”
Now we know why. We’re back in Orwell’s 1984. Our mainstream media has dedicated itself to fabricating the news and dutifully reporting what the government wishes it to say. No wonder it’s failing.
Good post by Matt: good insight by Jon: If Whitey wasn’t an informant, was he aware Stevie was? Were those meetings with Morriss&Connolly solely to get inside FBI info, from Whitey’s perspective? Other agents had some dinners with Whitey/Flemmi: do they remember either “informing” on gangsters?
But, Matt: consider this headline in Herald: “RICE BOOED”; I was at the BC graduation were 15,000 people gave Sec.ofState Condoleeza Rice Five (5) standing ovations. The only smattering of boos came one time:their source: some radical leftist professors who’d coerced some loon students to stand up and turn their backs on RICE: IT WAS THE RADICAL-LOONS who were being booed. Examples from the Globe are far worse. Journalistic-Ethics, as said, is a joke: an oxymoronic joke.
3. You’re right: They (Globe, Mass. judges/lawyers) stripped the Free Speech rights from Veterans in Parade case from 1992-1995, John Connolly’s const.rightsax DoubleJeopardy flagrantly violated (fair trial, due process, supremacyclause violations), so why not eradicate the presumption of innocence and why wait until arrest and arraignment: Anyone accused of a crime or even a civil offense (intolerance, cursing, shunning, failure to kneel and genuflect with Globe reporters pass by) anyone Accused by anyone ought to have his photo on the front page with a big scarlet letter A branded in his forehead. Bring back the stocks for the shunable and sinful. Remember Judge Shadie Shulman at Dot Court said, “Well, he must have done something wrong; why else would the police arrest him?”
William:
Good post – the Herald has lost its way. No wonder the biggest readers of the paper reside in nursing homes. It wasn’t too long ago they were giving it away at South Station but no one would even take it then. I used to think it was good being a two newspaper town but little good does it from what we see. Just think before we could go elsewhere for our news how ill informed we were. No wonder countries could go to war over nonsense issue like the one which started the Boer War or guys like Hilter could amass such power. When the media prints deliberate lies a country would be in trouble if there were no internet. That is probably all that is left to keep us free.
Matt,
Nice post. Quick thought before I head out this morning. On the informant issue, it occurs to me that one thing that needs addressing is the Whitey-Stevie partnership. These guys were partners and it’s tough to think that either of them did not know what the other was up to. Stevie was a tried and true informant. Whitey and Stevie together met with Connolly and Morris. Whitey had to have some idea that Stevie was giving information to C&M. If Whitey simply lets it go, is he an informant by association? Or is he allowing a rat in his crew and not doing anything about it? That does seem to have some bearing on the issue, and I’m not sure what to think about it.
JON:
Of course Whitey knew Stevie was an informant. He had no problem with that. In fact he used it to help himself out by agreeing not to blow the whistle on him. I don’t think that makes him an informant especially since Stevie is giving information Whitey knows nothing about. What does White care if Stevie wants to undermine his buddies in the Mafia. He just wants the protection Connolly can give.
I guess it makes sense in that Whitey had a spy on the Mafia. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Mafia may have been partners, but also rivals. As long as Stevie informs on rivals, then I can see no inconsistency. Like the NSA spying on other countries. You think they don’t spy on us? No one likes a foreign spy on domestic soil. But everyone likes our own spy on foreign soil.
Jon:
Sounds about right.