In a potentially controversial development, it seems that some Massachusetts State Police disagree with Gov. Patrick about how to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.

State Police in Western Massachusetts are enforcing immigration laws despite what [illegal] immigrant advocates say is Governor Deval Patrick's clear policy that [illegal] immigration is not the business of local officers.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, one of the groups that brought the situation to the attention of the Patrick administration in a recent meeting, says the practice is routine in the Berkshires.

According to the ACLU, troopers from the Lee Barracks in Berkshire County have targeted drivers who appear to be Brazilian, and have quizzed them and their passengers on their immigration status after stopping them for speeding, expired inspection stickers, and other routine offenses.

In at least two of those cases, they held drivers whom they believed to be illegal immigrants and turned them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Attorneys and other activists say that the troopers are disregarding a policy Patrick set in January, when he rescinded an agreement made with federal authorities by his predecessor, Mitt Romney, that would have allowed some specially trained state troopers to arrest and detain illegal immigrants without consulting federal authorities...

Does Gov. Patrick really want to do away with mandatory minimum sentencing laws?

Governor Deval Patrick has launched a comprehensive review of the state's mandatory sentencing laws, an effort endorsed by the attorney general and the chief justice of the state trial courts to help stop the "revolving door" in the state's prison system.

"People come out more dangerous than when they went in," Patrick told the Globe last week, explaining his administration's focus on fundamentally changing the philosophy of the criminal justice system.

Administration officials say that the mandatory minimum sentences, which eliminate judges' discretion in certain cases, drive up the cost of corrections and make it less likely that prisoners will participate in programs that could help them reenter society when they are released...

UPDATE: More from the Globe and Michael Graham.

Can Gov. Patrick really reduce violence in Boston?

Gov. Deval Patrick is on the verge of announcing a raft of initiatives to help Boston combat a surge in violent crime, including an immediate infusion of new cops and cash to pay for programs targeting at-risk youths, sources said.

The package of initiatives, ironed out as the body count has escalated in recent days, could be announced as soon as today. Patrick met with Mayor Thomas M. Menino to discuss the crisis Tuesday and promised state help is on the way...

Two sources briefed on aspects of the plan said that Patrick proposes to use $2 million of the state’s budget to bolster anti-crime programs in Boston - including some cash to add rank-and-file cops to the BPD’s dwindling ranks. Some of that money is from the $11 million Shannon grant Patrick cut from his initial budget.

UPDATE: More from the Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: From the Globe, Herald and Mass. GOP News.

THIRD UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

Yesterday, WBZ-TV political reporter Jon Keller had an interesting post about an incident last year in which Deval Patrick had some pointed things to say about questionable elements in urban culture:

...This brings to mind a scene I witnessed in Lynn last August, then-candidate Deval Patrick meeting informally with a group of local girls - about the same ages as Patrick's own daughters - at the social-service agency Girls Inc. In the course of the conversation, Patrick told a story I'd never heard him tell before, and haven't heard since.

One of the governor's girls wanted to go see 50 Cent in Manchester, N.H., and daddy, could you please get tickets and drive me and my friends up? He could, but while the daughter figured he'd go do whatever it is old people do for two hours before returning to pick her up, it seems Dad was acquainted with the show's promoter, and watched Fiddy perform from the wings.

I've got a tape of what Deval said somewhere, and I'll try to give you precise quotes in a future post. But the gist of it was, he was appalled at the misogyny of the music and the performance, repulsed by the coarseness of it, angered by the way he felt this demeaned and degraded women and the thought of its impact on young girls and boys.

It was eloquent. It was moving. It was sincere. There was no disagreement from the girl. Staffers. They seemed thrilled that a politician was actually addressing something real in their lives with courage and candor. It was Deval Patrick, potential leader, at his best...

[W]ouldn't it be something - a galvanizing moment for the victimized communities, a courageous repudiation of decay-enabling political correctness, a turning point in the public image of the new administration - if the only African-American governor in America took to the pulpit this week and made it crystal clear what standards of behavior - from parental accountability to cooperation with authorities - he expects from those communities?

Obviously, I'm far more cynical than Keller, because I don't expect Gov. Patrick to say a damn thing this time around. Honestly, what can he say?

It's impossible to imagine Patrick today making the same sort of hard-hitting critique of urban culture he made last year. Patrick surely knows what happened to Bill Cosby when he tore into the self-destructive culture of the black underclass in 2004: Cosby was given the Clarence Thomas/Shelby Steele treatment, accused of "blaming the victim" and of pandering to white conservatives.

Criticizing the urban underclass is a political taboo in this country. This has been the case for years: remember when the far left tried to brand the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan a racist bigot when he criticized fatherlessness in the black community?

Patrick may have shown courage in his anti-50 Cent remarks last year, but it's hard to envision him showing that same courage once again. The last thing Patrick wants is to be attacked by the far left for allegedly beating up on society's outcasts--something that will indeed happen if he again criticizes urban dysfunction.

Patrick isn't stupid. Right now, the only support he has is on the far left. He is not going to alienate them by attacking urban dysfunction, because according to progressive philosophy, that's "mean-spirited."

Patrick is not going to step into this breach. He won't change anyone's mind if he does: conservatives will fault him for not acknowledging the role of LBJ's Great Society in creating the crisis in the 'hood, and liberals will accuse him of not placing the blame where they feel it really belongs: on "lingering racism," "the right-wing war on the poor," "the consequences of Reaganomics," etc. Criticizing urban dysfunction will get Patrick nothing but trouble. And doesn't he already have enough of that?

UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

Another brilliant idea from Deval:

Gov. Deval Patrick, who often speaks of having been disciplined as a child as much by his neighbors as his own relatives, urged Boston-area parents to get similarly involved in response to a wave of violence that has plagued the state's capital city.

There have been 13 murders in Boston this year, up from 10 the same time last year. Over the weekend, a 22-year-old New York woman was shot and killed after attending a party on crime-plagued Geneva Avenue in Dorchester.

"I realize it's a different time; it's not the '50s any more," the governor said Wednesday in response to a question after addressing the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. "But every once in a while, when that adult says, 'You know what? You're not supposed to come to work with your pants down there,' ... even when that kid rolls their eyes, they hear you. It gets through."

That's the key to solving the crime problem in Boston... Adults, if you see a kid with his pants hanging low, tell him to pull those pants up. You might just stop that kid from shooting someone.

Gov. Patrick proposes taxing criminals. Ben LaGuer, pay up!

Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan urges Governor Patrick to make fighting urban violence a priority--as if Patrick can really accomplish that goal...

Deval Patrick never seems to be on the side of the victim. We saw this in the case of Benjamin LaGuer, Carl Ray Songer, and we can see it in this story that the Boston Herald is now reporting on.

As the Justice Department’s chief civil rights prosecutor, Deval Patrick made the controversial decision not to criminally prosecute an FBI sniper who shot and killed an unarmed woman as she held her infant daughter in her arms during a 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

The incident, in which U.S. Marshall William F. Degan of Quincy and the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed during an 11-day standoff, is cited by experts as the spark that started the anti-government militia movement that exploded after the standoff in Waco, Texas, less than a year later.

In 1994, Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor who was then assistant attorney general, concluded there was insufficient basis to prosecute FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for shooting and killing 43-year-old Vicki Weaver. Horiuchi had testified that he opened fire on the woman’s husband and his friend, Kevin Harris, when he thought they were about to fire on an FBI helicopter.

Patrick made the recommendation despite a report by a task force assembled by Patrick’s boss, Attorney General Janet Reno, that found numerous problems with the FBI’s handling of the standoff, and called the protocol used by the FBI’s Hostage Rescue unconstitutional under the circumstances.

The report referred the case to Patrick’s department to decide whether to charge Horiuchi. Aides to Patrick said he was unavailable for comment because he was preparing for last night’s debate.

Deval Patrick, who now believes justice is served with Benjamin LaGuer in prison (only after the DNA test Patrick paid for proved him guilty again) and Carl Ray Songer sitting in prison for the rest of his life instead being put to death (thanks to Patrick's efforts), apparently thinks justice is served by his recommendation to not prosecute Horiuchi. Horiuchi was judged by Deval Patrick, not a jury. Many people saw this as poor judgment.

In 1995, however, a Senate subcommittee headed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) found “simply no justification” for the shot Horiuchi took that killed Vicki Weaver and “missed the 10-month-old baby in her arms by less than two feet.”

“Horiuchi should have known that as he fired blind through the cabin door, he was shooting into an area which could well have contained Vicki Weaver and her two younger daughters,” states the report, which took no position on whether Horiuchi should have been prosecuted.

The decision not to prosecute was ripped by both conservative and liberal groups. “It was obscene,” said author James Bovard, an outspoken critic of federal officials’ handling of the case. “There was no need for the excessive force the FBI used in gunning down a mother holding her baby.”

ACLU Legislative Counsel Timothy Edgar said the incident was “the result of overzealous - and unchecked - federal power.”

Deval certainly has a bizarre sense of what justice really is. Did he not want Horiuchi to be punished for killing the wife of a white separatist? Did he blindly push for Benjamin LaGuer's parole without "doing his homework" because of allegations of racism in jury? And who knows what he was thinking when he helped get cop killer Carl Ray Songer off of death row?

One thing is clear, Deval Patrick's version of "justice" won't make us any safer.

Deval Patrick has repeatedly said that the illegal immigrants come here for the jobs, not the millions of dollars of services they also take advantage. Since he doesn't recognize the illegal status of illegal immigrants, he is all about making sure they get the jobs they are risking life and limb to come here for and steal from citizens. But even Deval has wobbled a bit on his position of making sure there are jobs available for the illegal immigrants.

A question from the MIRA Coalition to Patrick asked how he would represent the needs and opportunities of non-citizen taxpayers, regardless of their immigration status, to which he replied, “my focus as governor will be on helping all people get and keep good jobs, be assured quality public education, and gain access to affordable, safe, high quality health care.” In this statement, he admits he wants to give illegal immigrants the jobs he says they are exclusively coming here for, plus the services he doesn't think they go border jumping for.

This represents a flip flop on the issue based on his position outlined on Boston Globe survey of the three Democratic candidates for governor, where in response to the question about allowing Massachusetts State Police to arrest "undocumented immigrants" for being here illegally, Patrick's answer showed support for McCain-Kennedy bill and enforce our own state immigration laws.

Hey, we've been saying for quite some time that Deval Patrick is soft on crime. Perhaps Deval Patrick's supporters won't listen to us, but maybe they'll listen to State Rep. Koutoujian (10th Middlesex), who, in a Freudian slip said that Deval Patrick "will not protect victims."

And if you liked that one, here's another from State Rep. Ruth Balser (12th Middlesex) saying that Deval Patrick will "not be tough on crime."

I guess deep down they know that Deval Patrick is a soft-on-crime liberal Democrat, and the truth just slips out when they're trying to defend him.

As part of her 50-point plan, Kerry Healey would call for posting photos of level 2 sex offenders on the Internet.

Deval Patrick and Tim Murray have not taken a position on this issue. Considering the fact that Deval Patrick has carelessly tried to free a convicted rapist, and Tim Murray has represented sex offenders, it's easy to assume what their position on this issue would be, but we'd like to see them go on the record with their position.

Deval Patrick's strategy is becoming clearer everyday.

Recent stories revealing his weak-on-crime record have resulted in his lead being diminished substantially. Despite his lead in the polls, they also revealed that the voters agree with Kerry Healey on the issues, but for whatever reason, like Deval's image.

It then comes as no surprise that Deval has made negative campaigning a major topic of his campaign speeches and television ads. Deval even enlisted Martha Coakley, another weak on crime Democrat, to go negative for him in his latest television ad.

The ad characterizes Kerry Healey's "attacks" on Patrick as "inaccurate and misleading." Inaccurate? Did Deval Patrick not try to obtain a pardon for Ben LaGuer? Did Deval Patrick not donate $5,000 to him? Did Deval Patrick not come to the aid of convicted cop killer Carl Ray Songer? Coakley also claimed that "we've lost hundreds of police" during the Romney/Healey administration, a claim that has been debunked, but the Patrick-Murray campaign continues to present as accurate.

Coakley concludes by making the absurd claim that for Deval Patrick, crime is "a real problem to be solved," while for Kerry Healey it's "just another negative ad."

Never did Coakley dispute or defend Patrick's record, that wasn't the point. The point was to accuse Kerry Healey of misleading negative campaigning, while inserting more cliches and slogans like "Deval Patrick thinks crime is real problem to be solved," which sounds like it came from Chris Gabrieli's campaign.

In other words, Patrick is running from his record and is trying to make this campaign a referendum on negative campaigning, rather than about the issues. Why? Because Deval Patrick is on the wrong side of the issues and rather than call attention to his position on illegal immigration or his weak record on crime, he's trying to keep Kerry Healey's negatives high by demonizing her as just another negative campaigner.

If Deval thinks this strategy will work, then he's welcome to try... But he can't hide from his record for long.

Over the past week and a half, we've heard lots of details of Deval Patrick's support for convicted rapists and cop killers and his lead in the polls has been severely diminished. Still, Patrick claims to be proud of his record defending these monsters, and therefore, it should come as no surprise that Deval Patrick is enlisting the help of an accused rapist in the final weeks of the campaign.

On October 25, former President Bill Clinton, who has been accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick, will be in Worcester for a campaign rally for Deval Patrick and Tim Murray.

The rally, two weeks before the election, is expected to draw thousands to an indoor or outdoor location yet to be determined. The time is also not set yet, but will be held sometime during the day to allow Mr. Clinton to make it to Boston for an evening fund-raiser for the Democratic ticket.

The Patrick/Murray ticket seems like a great match for Bill Clinton. Deval Patrick, as we know, has vigorously advocated for the release of a convicted rapist, and Tim Murray, has represented sex offenders in front of the Sex Offender Registry Board, and has an active case that is currently pending. The Patrick/Murray ticket is quite clearly very friendly to sex offenders like Bill Clinton and Ben LaGuer.

Earlier this week Deval Patrick took out his Victim Card and claimed that he didn't "need to be lectured to about respecting victims" because he was a victim, too.

After having some time to discuss with his advisers on what his true crime story should be, Patrick revealed in an exclusive interview with the Boston Herald that he'd been hit in the head by an empty soda can with a piece of glass wedged in it.

“I have been in places and myself have experienced what the impact of violence can be,” Patrick said, recalling his boyhood on the south side of Chicago. “I understand that and my heart goes out to victims.”

He spoke of one incident in which he was attacked because he refused to yield to pressure to join a gang. Patrick said he was struck in the head by a soda can into which glass had been inserted, leaving him “a very bloody mess.”

Patrick, who initially refused to describe the attack after invoking it Wednesday to defend his criminal justice credentials, said he was constantly surrounded by gang activity while growing up in the tough Chicago neighborhood.

This was the big secret? It is because of this incident that Deval Patrick says he doesn't "need to be lectured to about respecting victims?"

Yeah, Deval really "respects" victims so much that he thinks that getting hit with an empty soda can is just as traumatic as being brutally raped for hours and hours. I guess we shouldn't be surprised he couldn't apologize to the family of Ben LaGuer's victim, in his mind, he's one of them.

I'm sure the Barry family appreciates the fact that Deval Patrick believes he can understand them because he was hit by a soda can.

This was the only specific story that he cited, but was sure to reference other gang-related violence we're supposed to believe he was a regular victim of.

After Patrick's touching story about being assaulted by a soda can, he backtracked a bit, saying that what he experienced wasn't "anywhere near as catastrophic" as the crimes of the murderers and rapists he's defended over the years. Then why did he bother bringing it up? Why was it the only specific example he cited?

Let's say that Deval Patrick truly was traumatized by this incident... Does that change his record as an adult defending cop killers and rapists? Does being hit with a soda can as a youth mean he's magically tough on crime? Of course not, his record speaks for itself. Does he think the Barry family is going to be fooled and endorse him now? How about the Bish family or the Presti family? No, they won't be fooled, and neither will other Massachusetts voters.

Are properly inflated basketballs a constitutional "right?" If you ask Deval Patrick, they are, and if convicted killers don't get their hands on properly inflated basketballs, Deval isn't a happy camper.

Democrat Deval Patrick has championed the constitutional “rights” of convicted rapists and murderers, demanding they be given juice, clean sheets, cold tuna sandwiches, white underwear and properly inflated basketballs, records show.

While working as President Clinton’s top civil rights lawyer in the mid-1990s, Patrick sent letters to prison officials in several states, alleging violations from inadequate air conditioning and insufficient recreation time to denying cons juice or milk at lunch and requiring inmates to make $2 medical co-payments.

In one 1994 Department of Justice letter, Patrick chastised correction officials in Syracuse, N.Y., for not providing “sufficient sporting/recreation equipment to afford prisoners the opportunity to participate in large muscular activity.” Among the injustices cited by the DOJ were “under inflated basketballs” and “only 1 operative basketball hoop.”

There's a whole laundry list of so-called constitutional "rights" Deval Patrick has demanded for criminals, rapists and murders... and make no mistake about it, Patrick is "is proud of his work on behalf of President Clinton."

So are criminals, rapists and murderers and all the lowlifes he has spent his career looking out for.

You got to think that Deval Patrick is cursing himself out for ever having been involved with Benjamin LaGuer. As high profile Democrats are being trotted out to stick up for Patrick (though none of them have said they would have sent those letters to LaGuer or the Parole Board), more criticism is being levied at Patrick from a group of victims' rights advocates, the Boston Globe reports.

A group of victims' rights advocates, including some supporters of Republican nominee Kerry Healey, yesterday sent a harshly worded letter to Democratic candidate Deval L. Patrick, accusing him of siding with convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer and ignoring the victim in the case.

``We challenge you to take a hard look at your own conduct in this case and ask yourself why at every opportunity you took the side of the violent offender over that of the victim," said the letter, which was e-mailed to the Globe late yesterday afternoon.

Laurie Myers, one of the cosigners, said that she was the author and the letter was her idea, not that of the Healey campaign. Another of the signers, lawyer Wendy Murphy, said Healey's campaign had asked her to sign the letter. Murphy serves on the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, which is chaired by Healey.

Healey's campaign confirmed last night that some of the people who signed the letter were supporters of her campaign.

The letter was signed by John and Magi Bish, whose daughter, Molly, disappeared from her lifeguard post at Comins Pond in Warren in June 2000, when she was 16. Her remains were found three years later in a wooded area a few miles away.

John Bish donated $200 this year to Reed Hillman, who is Healey's running mate.

The letter was also signed by Annette and Peter Presti, whose daughter, Joanne, was raped and killed, and whose granddaughter Alyssa, 12, was also killed in their Woburn home in 2004. The suspect in the case is a man who had previously been convicted of rape. The other signer was Debbie Savoia, a victims' rights advocate.

It will be very interesting to see how Patrick's position in the polls is affected by the LaGuer story.

For over thirty years, the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system, has given employers access to information on current and potential employees' criminal records--information that they should very well have access to. But, of course, not everyone feels the same way, for instance, Darrin Howell, one of approximately a hundred people who showed up for a CORI Justice and Peace Day event. The Boston Globe reported on the event.

As music blared and people lined up for barbecue atop a hilly section of Malcolm X Park in Roxbury yesterday, Darrin Howell talked about how his life had changed three years ago when he was arrested for firearms possession and domestic violence.

``I took risks with my freedom and I ended up paying for it," said Howell, 24, who spent a year in jail for those offenses.

``Before I went in, I worked in administrative offices, doing data entry," Howell said, ``but after I got out, I haven't been able to find that type of work. When they check my background now and this comes up, they don't want anything to do with me."

Other critics of the CORI system argue that it eliminates the possibility of "a second chance" for criminals.

``In Massachusetts, CORI is a life sentence because it follows you around and prevents you from getting a job or a house even when you've turned your life around," Small said.

Small was with Benjamin F. Thompson, the executive director of Boston Strive, a non profit job placement and training program.

Small and Thompson disagreed with current CORI regulations that misdemeanor violations can be sealed only after 10 years and felonies after 15 years. ``They should be expunged, not just sealed," Thompson said.

``But now, we're allowing young black men to use CORI as an excuse to not do anything, to just sit back and accept their situation," he said. But I want them to know that they can take control of their lives, that they don't have to be locked out."

Don't you just love the race-baiting here?

As usual, the two leading candidates for governor see things differently regarding the CORI system, and people expect those differences.

City Councilman Chuck Turner, a longtime proponent of CORI reform, said the Democratic nominee for governor, Deval L. Patrick, is more likely to help the reform cause than his opponent, Kerry Healey, a Republican. ``I don't think we can expect much change under Healy," said Turner. ``I can't say any specifics, but if Deval became governor, he would make it a fair and just policy."

Well, that's a no-brainer. While he may not have time to vouch for each person in the database, Deval Patrick will certainly err on the side of the criminal, not public safety, as we all know well by now.

A recent Boston Globe editorial suggested that the difference between Patrick and Kerry Healey's stance on CORI reform is that "to Patrick, CORI reform means limiting the criminal record information available to employers. Healey says her idea of CORI reform is making more information available, not less." City Councilman Chuck Turner, a proponent of CORI reform (the reform that can be described as "weakening") thinks Deval Patrick is the candidate more likely to aid in the effort to undermine the intent of CORI. "I don't think we can expect much change under Healey. I can't say any specifics, but if Deval became governor, he would make it a fair and just policy," said Turner.

Make no mistake about it, these CORI reform activists--or better yet let's call them anti-CORI activists--support Deval Patrick because his idea of reform will weaken CORI to make it easier for an ex-con with a record of violent crime to get a job at a school. Have these anti-CORI activists been contacted by Deval Patrick to assure them of this? Come to think of it, that's unnecessary. Anyone with access to last week's issues of the Boston Globe and Boston Herald know how Deval Patrick feels about criminals (like Ben LaGuer and Carl Songer).

CORI may have its imperfections, and reform on some level to fix those imperfections sounds fine, but any changes that will weaken its intent is tantamount to granting a guy like Ben LaGuer a pardon.