Not Willy Horton, but…
Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to hold Mitt Romney indirectly responsible for a Massachusetts ex-con’s alleged killing of a Washington state couple is clumsy and unfair. It’s not unfair because Romney’s appointment of Judge KatheTuttman is faultless. It’s unfair because Giuliani is using it in combination with the murder rate in Massachusetts during Romney’s term as governor to blatantly paint Romney as soft on violent criminals. But Romney was not soft on crime.
Romney certainly was not as aggressive a crime-fighter as Giuliani was. But on the whole Romney was a law and order governor who boosted the state police force, increased the size of the state police lab, reformed the judicial nominating process so better judges would reach the bench and denied every request for a pardon or sentence commutation.
In an editorial board interview with this newspaper on Monday, Giuliani attacked Romney for overseeing a rise in violent crime during his four years as governor. He also said Romney should take responsibility for appointing Judge Kathe Tuttman, who in June ordered the release without bail or electronic monitoring of Daniel Tavares, a convicted murderer who had served 16 years for stabbing his own mother to death. Tavares has been arrested in Washington state for allegedly murdering a newlywed couple there.
First, violent crime in Massachusetts dropped while Romney was governor. Murders and robberies rose, but it is hard to see how Romney, who offered state police officers for use by the city of Boston to help reduce crime there, is to blame. I asked Guiliani on Monday if former New York Gov. George Pataki could take credit for the drop in New York City crime during the mayor’s tenure there. He said yes — because Pataki helped with some anti-crime measures.
(Ironically, Democrats in Manchester this fall tried to defeat Giuliani-backer Mayor Frank Guinta by using the same tactic Giuliani is using on Romney. Using cherry-picked data, as Giuliani is doing, they blamed Guinta for a supposed rise in the city’s murder rate.)
Second, Judge Tuttman made a bad decision, but I’ve read nothing to indicate that she was a soft-on-crime judge overall. As the Globe and the Herald report, the state botched its case for keeping Tavares locked up, making it harder for Tuttman to justify denying his release. The state did not ask for a dangerousness hearing, so Tuttman was left to decide only whether Tavares might skip the state.
The Herald, no fan of Romney’s, editorialized, “Without evidence that Tavares posed a threat, Tuttman could only consider whether he was a flight risk.”
Obviously Tuttman erred on the question of whether Tavares was a flight risk. It should’ve been obvious that a convicted killer facing new charges of assaulting prison guards might think twice about sitting around waiting for a new trial.
Does her bad decision make Romney soft on crime? Hardly. But Romney deserves whacking over her appointment anyway. As Michael Graham pointed out, when Romney appointed Tuttman he boasted that he was appointing a woman. He seemed to be more concerned about political correctness than anything else. Giuliani should be criticizing Romney for basing his judicial selections on political considerations. Instead, he’s unfairly portraying Romney as soft on crime.
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