Law

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Cruelty, compassion, and a capuchin, a decade later

The baby in the box
I had tried not to look at the monkey's tits — the result, Janet told me later, of a glandular disorder. They bounced whenever the monkey moved. If you shaved them, they would have been a pretty nice set.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 04, 2011

Curbing corruption with a catch-all

Vague Justice?
Sal DiMasi is no saint, but that doesn't mean he's a criminal. His behavior makes us grimace, but it simply doesn't amount to a state or federal felony.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | June 24, 2011

Corporate prison bill 'carried over'

Inmate Exile Dept.
Although LD 690, A BILL TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR "EXILED" PRISONERS TO RETURN TO MAINE , was killed May 6 by the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, political activist Ron Huber, who had pushed it, declared "victory in Augusta" on his Facebook page.
By LANCE TAPLEY | May 12, 2011

GOP lawmakers want to do DeCoster 'a favor'

How Soon We Forget Dept.
Jack DeCoster is possibly the most infamous Maine businessman of all time.
By COLIN WOODARD | April 27, 2011

At a turning point

LePage's nominee to head Corrections has the skills to fix Maine's broken prison system. Will the governor and lawmakers give Joseph Ponte the tools?
When Joseph Ponte was told that Maine's longtime corrections commissioner Martin Magnusson had once informed the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, after a dramatic hostage-taking, that there were "probably 300 inmates right now with a weapon in their hand" — and that nobody at the committee meeting seemed disturbed by this information — Ponte's reaction was "I would be extremely perturbed by that."
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 09, 2011

Review: The Murder Trial of John Gordon at the Park Theatre

Trial from another era
Who knew? Everybody knows about that frisky, independent start by Roger Williams, and the first bloodshed of the American Revolution with the burning of the Gaspee , but who knows about the dispute between the lowly immigrant Gordon family and the prestigious Spragues, which resulted in the last state execution in Rhode Island, back in 1845?
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 18, 2011

LePage interested in corporate prisons

The $25,000 contribution question
In the gubernatorial campaign the controversial Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest for-profit prison operator, spent $25,000 on behalf of Republican candidate Paul LePage, now the governor-elect.
By LANCE TAPLEY | May 26, 2011

Review: The Law

What a goofy choice for a film restoration
Was it that everyone got to hang out on the Mezzogiorno coast, enjoying good pasta and swimming, during the shoot?
By GERALD PEARY | July 14, 2010

Bristol’s crusading lawyer goes Hollywood

Exoneration
If you haven’t heard of Betty Anne Waters, the Bristol pub owner and single mother of two who put herself through college and law school in a nearly three-decade crusade to overturn her brother’s murder conviction, you will soon.
By ELIZABETH RAU | July 14, 2010

With plans for a downtown mural, Shepard Fairey returns to Providence

Obey
It is a rather unremarkable collection of bricks at the moment: an exterior wall at the back of Trinity Repertory Company’s Pell Chafee Performance Center in downtown Providence.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 16, 2010

The powerless rise

The danger of the unfocused anger of the Tea Party
I’m an even-tempered guy. I don’t lose my cool more than, maybe, once or twice a day.
By AL DIAMON | May 19, 2010

‘There are no rules’

The 11th-hour change
On April 19, the Globe first reported that arbitrators had awarded the Boston firefighters union a 19-percent raise. By the next morning, both the Globe and the Herald were citing Menino administration figures of a $74 million cost.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 12, 2010

Your words are not your own

Less Otten. More Originality.
Plagiarism is a serious charge.
By AL DIAMON | May 12, 2010

Bully pulpit

Letters to the Boston editor, April 23, 2010
While I understand, appreciate, and respect the First Amendment and our right to speak freely, in the case of bullying, Harvey Silverglate makes a dangerous assumption that “civilized people, even teenagers can intuit the difference between protected speech and criminal harassment.”
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | April 21, 2010

Are doctors complicit in prison torture?

The Maine medical community looks at solitary confinement
In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 21, 2010

Elena Kagan’s shaky record

What a Kagan appointment to the Supreme Court could mean for civil liberties
As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | April 16, 2010

A ‘moral victory’ against supermax torture

Analysis
At times the legislative debate on LD 1611, the bill to limit solitary confinement of the state’s prisoners, became surreal.
By LANCE TAPLEY | April 15, 2010

Murderabilia

A serial killer seeks a payoff
Incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Cranston, Rhode Island, Jeff Mailhot grabbed a pen and a sheet of stationery and traced an outline of his beefy left hand.
By JOHN LARRABEE | April 05, 2010

Corporate love

Think how much simpler life would be
Here’s a modest proposal for resolving the problems associated with marriage: Abolish it.
By AL DIAMON | April 02, 2010

Maine tortures women, too

But Riverview presents an alternative
The Maine Department of Corrections is an equal-opportunity torturer.
By LANCE TAPLEY | March 10, 2010

The cost of torture

Solitary Confinement Bill Hearing
In the end, whether mass solitary confinement continues at the Maine State Prison supermax may come down to an issue of money rather than right or wrong. And resolving that issue may come down to whether the state wants to pay more now to pay less in the long term.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 25, 2010

Secret Harbor

The real-life version of Scorsese's Shutter Island imports hundreds of homeless from the South End every evening; they’re among the few allowed on Boston Harbor’s isle of mystery.
A home for the criminally insane it might not be, but the real-life Shutter Island is, like the one in the new Martin Scorsese film that hits theaters this week, a spooky and controversial land mass in Boston Harbor that is indeed off-limits to the public.
By CHRISTOPHER KLEIN | February 17, 2010

Seeking humane treatment

State and national efforts well under way
Some Maine people are taking moral responsibility for the way supermax inmates are treated.
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 17, 2010

Should non-citizens vote?

Government Reform
We Americans know we don't like taxation without representation in our democracy, but should we allow participation without naturalization?
By JEFF INGLIS | February 17, 2010

Mean everything to nothing

True tax stories
My favorite movie-advertising phrase is "based on a true story." Translated into English, it means: "more or less, a big fat lie."
By AL DIAMON | January 13, 2010

Building block

Letters to the Boston editor, January 15, 2010
Your editorial, “Menino’s Promise,” about Mayor Menino’s inauguration, stated: “He must shelve his reservations about becoming more involved in private development.”
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | January 13, 2010

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