A Dirty Dozen.
By Jim Conley • Dec 16th, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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The Globe’s “City Weekly” section covers last week’s whitewash of police actions toward Arthur Conquest and says the matter is, “not likely to go away soon.” Amen to that.
And like many things is Brookline, there’s more to the story than this one incident. Consider this passage from the Globe story:
“In the 12 years I’ve been a selectman, we haven’t held a single hearing” on a complaint of police misbehavior, [Selectman Gil] Hoy said. “I felt this complaint in particular commanded so much public interest that the public deserved an opportunity to hear the evidence firsthand.”
Twelve years and not a single hearing into a police officer’s handling of citizens. Why? Well, maybe it has to do with the idiotic review policy drafted by former Selectmen Martin Rosenthal and Jeffrey Allen. Maybe it’s because the police are charged with investigating themselves. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that the selectmen don’t notify the complaining party when they take up the complaint.
We need an independent police review panel in Brookline. Simple as that.
An aside: On the TAB’s blog, editor Erin Clossey calls Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting”bizzaro” and asks why Selectman Betsy DeWitt recused herself from the matter but Bobby Allen (”who comes from a family of cops”) did not.
I’ve asked DeWitt the reason for the recusal, she doesn’t respond.
But on the matter of Allen, puhlease. It’s not just that Allen comes from a family of cops, it’s that he lists his younger brother - a lieutenant on the Brookline force - as “of counsel” to his law firm. Imagine that, a firm which does criminal defense work in Brookline Municipal Court advertising an officer on the force as its gray beard.
Folks, the public interest is Kryptonite to Bobby Allen’s superpowers of self interest. And his entire political career has been dedicated to keeping the debilitating element in a lead case.
Update: Here a link to a Massachusetts’ Board of Bar Overseers paper on the “of counsel” relationship to a law firm.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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Chapter 268A sets forth conflict of interest, limitations and restrictions upon public employees, including elected officials, at the state, county and municipal levels. For elected officials who are attorneys, the Board of Bar Overseers Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 8.4 Misconduct sets forth the following comment:
“[3] Lawyers holding public office assume legal responsibilities going beyond those of other citizens. A lawyer’s abuse of public office can suggest an inability to fulfill the professional role of lawyer. The same is true of abuse of positions of private trust such as trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, agent and officer, director or manager of a corporation or other organization.”
These should be considered in addition to the “Of Counsel” article linked to in the above post.
There are gray areas in determining whether or not an elected official who also happens to be an attorney may have a conflict of interest under Chapter 268A. Such an elected official does not need a “bright line” test for recusal, if there is a potential, apparent, perceived or even the appearance of a possible conflict. When there is doubt in such official’s mind, and especially if such official is concerned with what the public may think, the honorable thing to do is to recuse one’s self.