With conservative Steve Laffey and progressive David Cicilline out of the 2010 RI Governor's race, I thought I would examine the progressive credentials of Attorney General Patrick Lynch
Unfortunately, Lynch's continued obstruction of common sense and meaningful criminal justice reforms is one of the reasons that many progressives - including myself - have not yet endorsed his bid for Governor (I have not endorsed anyone, for the record).
Today's BeloJo highlights Lynch's opposition to legislation passed last year in the General Assembly through the stewardship of Rep. David Segal and introduced again this year that would reform Rhode Island's out-of-date probation laws. Currently, Rhode Island is 1 of only 3 states that have these out-dated procedures (along with Alabama and South Dakota).
"We believe we cannot be confident [that] violation hearings such as Jackson’s are resulting in accurate rulings," Horton said yesterday. "In Rhode Island, 1 in every 28 people is on probation, but we are one of only three states (South Dakota and Alabama are the others) that require such little evidence to sentence a violation hearing. If you can arrest someone, you can probably get them sentenced as a violator. These two facts are creating a perfect storm."
How does Lynch respond to Horton, Segal, myself and other members of the General Assembly who voted for this bill?
[Lynch said] However opponents of the existing probation-violation law spin it, this system is fair, and our Supreme Court has continually upheld its fairness over the decades."
Pesonal attacks aside, it should be noted that this is the same Supreme Court that Lynch had some not-so-nice things to say about a mere eight months ago:
It took Attorney General Lynch some six hours before he was ready to talk about the [Supreme Court's] ruling, which he said he disagreed with and found "enormously disappointing." He said, "Saying it shouldn’t go forward is an insult to me, the [trial] court and the jury."
The bottom line is that Lynch's intransigence on common-sense criminal justice reform is just another conservative position that he has taken that worries progressives. Previous issues include Lynch's support of Telecom Immunity, his opposition to a federal shield law for journalists and his ambivalence on immigrant issues including the turning over of Danny Sigui to ICE after Sigui testified in a murder trial for the state. Of course, progressives have been tantalized by Lynch as he has been good on other issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and being the only general officer to support Barack Obama for president in the Democratic Primary.