USA TODAY International Edition
Victims may play part in Bulger sentencing
Although deaths not tied to Mob boss, judge may allow statements
BOSTON When a jury in August found Boston Mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger guilty of 11 murders and 31 racketeering counts, eight families still hungered for justice. Their loved ones’ deaths, the jury found, couldn’t be tied to Bulger.
Now, with Bulger’s sentencing hearing in federal court Wednesday, these frustrated survivors might get the last word. Prosecutors hope at least some of them will get to tell the court how Bulger victimized them.
That prospect has a juror crying foul, defense attorneys pushing back and legal experts warning that such a procedure could strengthen Bulger’s grounds for appeal.
Judge Denise Casper is considering a prosecution request to permit “all victims” to make impact statements at the hearing.
It is “beyond dispute that the criminal enterprise was responsible for the murder of all the victims specified in the indictment,” says an Oct. 11 prosecution filing with the court. “Family members of the murder victims clearly have a right to be heard at Bulger’s sentencing.”
Bulger’s attorneys have urged the court to reject the move “to disrupt the findings of the jury.” Juror Janet Uhlar has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate.
“The verdict we carefully, dutifully, and painfully deliberated is being mocked by the U. S. Attorney’s Office,” Uhlar said in an e- mail to USA TODAY. If all are permitted to speak despite the jury’s findings, she said, “U. S. jurisprudence will be dealt a fatal blow.”
Bulger, 84, is all but certain to spend the rest of his days in prison. Prosecutors are asking for two consecutive life sentences plus five years.
To allow victim impact statements from those not linked to the defendant’s crimes would be extremely rare, according to Michael Coyne, associate dean of Massachusetts School of Law in Andover. He said it could cast aspersions on the sentence.
“The appeals court could end up sending it back to her for having made a mistake,” Coyne said.
Casper might be weighing competing factors, said David Frank, editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Among possible concerns: Be sure no one who might count as a victim in this super- complex racketeering case is denied an opportunity to speak.
“By law, victims of crime have an absolute right to address the court before sentencing,” Frank said. “The judge has a difficult decision to make” as she considers, in light of conspiracy and other racketeering findings, how to define who is and who isn’t a Bulger victim.