A Spic Willie Horton--Just in Time

Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007

Romney: Judge Should Resign

By AP/CHARLES BABINGTON

(Derry, N.H.) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said

Saturday a judge he appointed while Massachusetts governor should

resign because she released without bail a convicted killer now

charged with murdering a young couple.

The decision by Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman to free Daniel

Tavares Jr. "showed an inexplicable lack of good judgment in a hearing

that decided to put someone on the street who had not only in the past

been convicted of manslaughter, but had threatened the lives of other

individuals and was a flight risk," Romney told reporters during a

campaign stop in Derry.

"And I think on that basis, that despite her record as being a law and

order prosecutor, her lack of judgment suggests that she needs to

resign from that post."

Tuttman declined comment but Joan Kenney, speaking for the court, said

the judge is highly competent and qualified. "Her decision was based

on the bail statute and the facts of the case before her," she said.

Tavares had completed his manslaughter sentence and had been charged

with assaulting two prison guards when he was freed.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that the 41-year-old Tavares,

while imprisoned in Massachusetts, had threatened to kill Romney and

other state officials. The threat was made in a letter intercepted by

prison officials in February 2006.

In June, Tavares completed a 16-year sentence for manslaughter for

killing his mother but prosecutors tried to keep him in prison for the

alleged guard assaults. A district court judge approved bail of

$50,000. In July, Tuttman overturned that decision and freed Tavares

on personal recognizance.

The transcript of that hearing shows that prosecutors did not mention

Tavares' alleged threats against Romney and others and did not ask the

judge for a separate hearing on whether he would be dangerous if

released while awaiting trial on the assault charges. Instead, they

underscored his history of violence and asked that if he were to be

released, he be monitored with a GPS device.

The judge declined to impose a monitoring system, saying she was

presented with no evidence that he was a flight risk, and ordered

Tavares freed on condition he call probation officers three times a

week, live with his sister and work.

Tavares fled to Graham, Wash., with a woman he met while in prison. On

Monday, Tavares was arrested for allegedly shooting to death Brian

Mauck, 30, and Beverly Mauck, 28, who lived near him.

Seizing on the case, one of Romney's GOP presidential rivals

criticized the former governor's record on crime.

"The governor is going to have to explain his appointment and the

judge is going to have to explain her decision," Rudy Giuliani told

The Associated Press during an interview aboard his campaign bus

during a stop in Laconia, N.H.

Giuliani pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket that listed FBI

crime statistics for Massachusetts while Romney was governor. Murders

were up 7.5 percent, robbery was up 12 percent, he said.

"He had an increase in murder and violent crime while he was

governor," Giuliani said. "So it's not so much the isolated situation

which he and the judge will have to explain -- he's kind of thrown her

under the bus, so it's hard to know how this is all going to come out.

But the reality is, he did not have a record of reducing violent

crime."

Edward P. Ryan Jr., a past president of the Massachusetts Bar

Association, said the judge made the correct call based on state law

"and for Romney to call for her to resign is nothing more than

political expediency."

"If Romney had any courage, he would stand up and say this judge did

the right thing," he said. Prosecutors "offered no facts other than to

refer to his record" in arguing for him to be held on bail.

Tavares was accused of spitting on a guard in February 2006 and of

hitting a guard in December 2005. His lawyer told the hearing that

prosecutors waited more than a year to bring the charges against him

as a way of keeping him behind bars past his manslaughter sentence.

Romney appointed Tuttman in April 2006. Fehrnstrom said Tuttman, a

career prosecutor, had a reputation that suggested she would be a "law-

and-order" judge.

"Otherwise, she never would have been appointed," Fehrnstrom said.

Romney was in the Seattle area on Monday and was warned that Tavares

might be in the Washington state area, Fehrnstrom said.

Romney does not now have Secret Service protection. The Secret Service

decides when to begin protecting presidential candidates based on

considerations including the nature of threats made against them, and

the likelihood of them becoming the nominee.

The Tavares case has echoes of a presidential campaign controversy two

decades ago involving a Massachusetts felon named Willie Horton.

Horton, serving a life term for murder, was granted a weekend furlough

under a program overseen by then-Gov. Michael Dukakis. Horton escaped

to Maryland, where he robbed and raped a woman.

A TV ad in the 1988 campaign associating Dukakis, the Democratic

nominee, with the incident hurt him in his race against Republican

George H.W. Bush, who won the election.