posted online<\/a> by Lawyers for Civil Rights shows that none of the recommendations was adopted unanimously.<\/p>\nTen commissioners \u2013 including Day, Eldridge, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and Reps. Sarah Peake, William Straus and Steven Xiarhos \u2013 endorsed a \u201ctwo-year continued review of the implementation and administration\u201d of the 2020 police reform law \u201cbefore recommending further substantive changes to the qualified immunity doctrine,\u201d to give interested parties a chance to understand the impacts of the law and its provision removing qualified immunity for decertified officers.<\/p>\n
Testimony from the Massachusetts Association for Professional Law Enforcement, quoted in the report, backed the idea of allowing time \u201cfor review and evaluation\u201d of the new Police Officer Standards and Training Commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rules and regulations that the commission will promulgate over the course of time will inevitably help clarify conduct, performance, and responsibility,\u201d reads an excerpted passage of MAPLE\u2019s testimony. \u201cThey will also assist in the removal of officers, who are unfit for duty. The courts should not be utilized as the primary agency for administering police discipline. Their primary focus should be the redress of specific injuries or damages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sens. Cynthia Creem and Julian Cyr, Lawyers for Civil Rights Executive Director Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal and American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts legal director Matthew Segal voted against the recommendation.<\/p>\n
Segal, in a statement, said the ACLU is disappointed that the report did not \u201crecommend meaningful changes to qualified immunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s be clear, this is a policy decision about who pays when police violate a person\u2019s civil rights: the longer we leave qualified immunity in place, the longer victims will continue to bear the full cost of that violence \u2013 medical bills, funeral expenses, and the emotional trauma of experiencing state violence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Civil Rights issued a statement that said the organization \u201ccondemns in the strongest possible terms the shameful outcome,\u201d saying that the lack of consensus \u201con the urgent need for reform\u201d after months of meetings \u201crepresents a colossal failure\u201d and \u201cis a miscarriage of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commission\u2019s reform efforts were also doomed to fail because its composition was deeply problematic. It failed to meaningfully reflect the people of color who are disproportionately and imminently at risk of police violence,\u201d the statement said. \u201cFrom the start, the right people were never at the table. As the outcome reflects, the commission was a charade and a fa\u00e7ade.\u201d<\/p>\n
LCR\u2019s Espinoza-Madrigal served on the panel as a designee of the NAACP New England Area Conference. In addition to the lawmakers and ACLU designee Segal, the commission\u2019s members included Sherborn Select Board member Paul DeRensis, a Massachusetts Municipal Association designee; Massachusetts Bar Association designee Richard Sweeney; and two Gov. Charlie Baker appointees representing police and fire unions \u2013 New England Police Benevolent Association President Christopher Ryan and Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts Vice President Matt Reddy.<\/p>\n
Sweeney, Reddy and Ryan each voted in favor of the two-year review, and against the commission\u2019s other two recommendations.<\/p>\n
The commission recommended two ways for lawmakers to amend the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, which the report classified as \u201cpreliminary changes\u201d to help the police reform law live up to its intent and \u201cto better inform any future evaluation of the qualified immunity doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan said he voted against the Civil Rights Act amendments because he considered them \u201coutside the scope\u201d of the commission. He said he anticipated that potential financial consequences and an \u201cincreased workload to our already overworked court system\u201d would \u201chave significant impact to the taxpayers of the commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis issue needs to be studied and vetted accordingly with further input and appropriate notice to the general public,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n
The report calls for one amendment that would remove, in claims against law enforcement officers, the requirement that a plaintiff show the defendant interfered with their civil rights specifically by using \u201cthreats, intimidation or coercion.\u201d The commission found there may be \u201cegregious\u201d civil rights violations that do not necessarily involve threats, intimidation or coercion, and said that clause \u201ceffectively eliminates a plaintiff\u2019s right to seek redress in state court for violations of civil rights by police officers, especially rights guaranteed by state law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report\u2019s other recommendation is for legislators to \u201crequire any court considering a claim for qualified immunity to make a determination about whether the alleged conduct in a case violates an individual\u2019s civil rights, even if the court also determines that any violation did not violate rights that were \u2018clearly established\u2019 at the time of the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commission heard clearly that claimants do not file civil rights cases in Massachusetts because the state law has a heightened standard when compared to the federal law, and we recognized that this could hamper the legal evolution of the qualified immunity doctrine,\u201d Day said in a statement. \u201cBy also requiring our courts to define what conduct violates an individual\u2019s civil rights, whether qualified immunity applies or not, we will allow case law to develop in Massachusetts that will inform policy makers in the future about the successes and failures of police reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eldridge, who also serves as Senate chair of the Legislature\u2019s Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, said the recommendations \u201cwill hopefully increase access to justice for civilians and improve the trust between law enforcement and vulnerable populations, while acknowledging that the qualified immunity reforms in the 2020 police reform law are still being implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n
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