Officials to consider reforms in handling arrest warrants

Administration, DAs react to Tavares case

By Shelley Murphy Globe Staff / December 5, 2007

The state's top prosecutors and Governor Deval Patrick's administration will scrutinize the state's system of handling arrest warrants and consider statewide reforms after David T. Tavares Jr., a convicted killer, jumped bail in Massachusetts and allegedly killed a newlywed couple in Washington state last month.

 

Kurt N. Schwartz, the governor's public safety undersecretary for law enforcement and fire services, said there are no statewide standards dictating who should be returned to Massachusetts. He said the state cannot mandate the return of everyone who flees because there are so many of them. He said the administration and the district attorneys will look at who makes the decision on whether someone should be sought nationwide, and how it is made.

"The priority is public safety so we need to make sure that we have a system that ensures public safety," Schwartz said. "The priority isn't cost savings."

Michael O'Keefe, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, said prosecutors grapple with limited resources and difficult choices each time they have to decide whether to seek the return of someone who has failed to show up in court after being charged. As of last week, there were 213,424 outstanding warrants in Massachusetts for people who had skipped their criminal hearings, according to court officials.

O'Keefe said the decision on who should be returned to Massachusetts to face charges is based on the severity of the crime they committed, with those wanted for murder, rape, and other violent crimes being the highest priority. When a warrant is issued, the district attorney's office that brought the case generally pays the cost of bringing suspects back and decides whether to seek their return if they are captured out-of-state.

"The cost is staggering to even think about getting them all back, even if you were to find them, so there has to be prioritization," O'Keefe said.

In Tavares's case, prosecutors indicated they would have sought his return to Massachusetts to face assault and battery charges only if he had been caught in New England, despite information he had taken a flight to Seattle.

On Nov. 17, Tavares, 41, who had already served 16 years in prison in Massachusetts for stabbing his mother to death, killed his neighbors, Beverly and Brian Mauck, in Graham, Wash., after bursting into their home, police contend.

"I hope that when we look at this systemically we'll be able to find some ways to shore up and patch some of the cracks through which this person fell," said O'Keefe, who is also district attorney of the Cape and Islands.

Instead of issuing a nationwide warrant for Tavares, the office of Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. entered Tavares's name in a national database. Early has said he thought that if police somewhere stopped Tavares, they would search the database, discover he was wanted in Massachusetts, and call Early's office. If that had happened, Early says, he would have dispatched officers to pick up Tavares.

But Washington police did not apprehend Tavares until the Maucks had been killed.

They say Early's office should have issued a nationwide warrant for Tavares, because of his violent history. He was found guilty of manslaughter in the killing his mother at her home in Somerset, Mass., and he was wanted on charges of assault against correctional officers. He also allegedly wrote letters threatening to kill his father, former Governor Mitt Romney, and other public officials while in custody.

Tavares finished his sentence for the slaying of his mother, then was released on personal recognizance in July while awaiting trial on the assault charges. The arrest warrant was issued when he failed to appear in court July 23.

Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff's office in Washington, which arrested Tavares in the double murder last month, said it was a mistake that Early's office did not issue a nationwide warrant.

"If he's dangerous enough not to be walking the streets of Boston or Massachusetts, he's dangerous everywhere," Troyer said.

Washington authorities also say Massachusetts State Police asked them to help look for Tavares a month before the Maucks were slain, but told them not to arrest him because the warrant had been issued only for New England.

Early has said he was unaware that Massachusetts authorities had told Washington police not to arrest Tavares. Last week, he defended his handling of the case, saying he had followed standard practice. He said that Tavares had been a priority, but that his office's best information was that Tavares was headed for Rhode Island.

"You can't get a manhunt for everyone," Early said last week. "With the resources that you have you are making decisions to evaluate cases and how to best use your resources."

O'Keefe defended Early's handling of the case and said the district attorneys association had launched its review of the warrant system at Early's urging.

"I know everybody likes bright line rules and standards, but that's not how it works," said O'Keefe, adding that this is not a problem limited to Massachusetts.

"I'll tell you another hard reality," O'Keefe said. "As you get to May and June of any given year when your budget is running into its last gasps so to speak . . . that's when the decisions become even harder because it's a very costly business to fly out to California or down to Florida with two armed police officers and bring people back."

Quoted from http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/05/officials_consider_arrest_warrant_overhaul/?page=full:

Officials to consider reforms in handling arrest warrants - The Boston Globe

 

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