District Attorney Marian Ryan’s Brady List of Untrustworthy Police Officers
Twelve of One Hundred and Seventeen from Somerville
Special to Somerville News Weekly by Joe Viglione
Out of the 117 police officers deemed untrustworthy by the office of Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, a dozen are from the city of Somerville.
Alphabetically they are: Michael Ameral, Henry Diaz, Dante DiFronzo, Paul Duffy, Marcos Freitas, Gravin Guillen, Yvon Jean-Jacques, Michael Kiely, Michael McGrath, Michael Silva, Samuel Stanford and John Vozella. The good news for Somerville – if you want to call it that, is that Medford has 30 blacklisted officers of the law, the State Police have 13, the city of Lowell has 13, Somerville is only fourth on the list with Framingham being number five with five.
Now we could go into each and every specific case as to why these individuals were deemed dishonest enough to be blacklisted, but the key here for every citizen is your rights if you are given a ticket – a moving violation – or are in any other way engaging with these officers in a manner that you believe is not proper. If one of these “dirty dozen” give you a ticket for speeding, can they show up in court and testify against you? Your lawyer – most likely – could have a field day.
So what are the implications of a government employee being on the Brady list? Keep in mind that this journalist is not a lawyer, I’m merely quoting information found on the internet and would be pleased for any lawyers reading this to give us their opinion and advice on how the public can use the Brady list for legal protection.
Let’s look at some of the information on the Brady vs Maryland lawsuit from Wikipedia:
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that established that the prosecution must turn over all evidence that might exonerate the defendant (exculpatory evidence) to the defense.[1]:4 The prosecution failed to do so for Brady and he was convicted. Brady challenged his conviction, arguing it had been contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._Maryland
A defendant’s request for “Brady disclosure” refers to the holding of the Brady case, and the numerous state and federal cases that interpret its requirement that the prosecution disclose material exculpatory evidence to the defense. Exculpatory evidence is “material” if “there is a reasonable probability that his conviction or sentence would have been different had these materials been disclosed.”[4] Brady evidence includes statements of witnesses or physical evidence that conflicts with the prosecution’s witnesses[5] and evidence that could allow the defense to impeach the credibility of a prosecution witness.[6]
Police officers who have been dishonest are sometimes referred to as “Brady cops”. Because of the Brady ruling, prosecutors are required to notify defendants and their attorneys whenever a law enforcement official involved in their case has a confirmed record of knowingly lying in an official capacity.[7]
What are the repercussions for these dishonest officers who took an oath to serve and protect?
There’s a national site called Brady Cops.org http://bradycops.org/ “Exposing the Rotten Apples within America’s Law Enforcement Agencies” – their site asks and answers: WHAT ARE BRADY COPS?
Scroll Down To Review “In 1963, the United States Supreme Court made a landmark decision in Brady v. Maryland 373 U.S. 83. The decision’s main focus was regarding exculpatory evidence in criminal prosecutions. Exculpatory evidence is evidence that tends to be favorable to the criminal defendant.
Sometimes, it is the police officer that has a history of dishonesty, which will mandate a Brady disclosure. These police officers with credibility problems are referred to as “Brady cops”.
The prosecutors that do develop a Brady list will usually reach out to their local police agencies’ internal affairs sections requesting sustained internal affairs investigations that call into question the credibility of those identified police officers. Surprisingly, many prosecutors do NOT develop or maintain a Brady list within their jurisdiction. In failing to do so, it’s left to speculation on how these prosecutors fulfill their reporting obligations under the Brady ruling.
Therefore, BradyCops.Org has a two prong purpose. We intend to build a nationwide database which contains as many of these Brady lists as we can secure. Further, we (BradyCops.Org) will identify those prosecutorial jurisdictions that have NOT developed or maintained a Brady list.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
The above-referenced BradyCops.org has a link to a San Diego Times Union article By JEFF MCDONALD
JULY 26, 2014 11:31 AM https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sdut-da-secret-brady-list-bad-cops-2014jul26-htmlstory.html
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis keeps a list of law enforcement officers that her prosecutors do not trust as witnesses in criminal trials, and the office will not say how many people are on the list or which agencies employ them.
The so-called Brady Index is a closely guarded secret that includes officers and deputies with a track record of lying or other misconduct that could undermine credibility on the witness stand.
________________________________________________________________________________
Thus, our Freedom of Information Act public records request obtained for Somerville readers information that is not out there in the public domain…until now!
Does it mean if you get a ticket for a moving violation that you can bring up the officer’s history to the court? Ask a lawyer, but one thing is for certain, if it is your word against a Brady cop’s word – someone who took an oath of office and is expected to be held to the highest of standards, this regular person (I am NOT a lawyer) likes the odds.
__________________________________________________________________________
This writer lived in Somerville from 1954 to 1963 and went to St. Clements grades 1-3 before moving on to Arlington. A lot has changed in those fifty plus some odd years. It was a kinder, gentler time, George H. W. Bush, indeed. But maybe that’s because we didn’t know of such things as a “Brady List.” Maybe things were going on that the media didn’t publish back in the day? It is your civil rights at play here.
Most citizens don’t even know about the Somerville Charter, Do people even know that there is a document governing the city of Somerville, a Commonwealth of Massachusetts Constitution along with the national Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution and its various amendments? These are your rights, people! Read and learn!
Massachusetts Constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Massachusetts
Mayor Curtatone’s Someville Website has ordinances, but I cannot readily find the Somerville Charter
https://library.municode.com/ma/somerville
perhaps that’s a story for another day.
__________________________________________________________________
BACK TO THE BRADY LIST:
You may ask yourself – Are there more than 117 people on the “Brady List” in Massachusetts? The 117 we have in these documents are only 1/14th.
According to Wikipedia there are 14 counties in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has ended eight of its fourteen county governments. This leaves five counties with county-level local government (Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth) and one, Nantucket County, with combined county/city government. We can obtain the names of all of the government officials on these Brady lists from each and every country. As this is Somerville I have started with the Middlesex County Brady list.
Clearly, there is much more to this story. The investigation continues.
________________________________________________________________
Joe Viglione
P.O. Box 2392
Woburn MA 01888
