Case and law hinge on taped words

SJC ruling could shift wiretap limits

A 7-minute jailhouse conversation Deryck Long had with a woman visitor could put the 39-year-old Boston man behind bars for the rest of his life.

"I have no remorse," he said in a secretly recorded conversation that Norfolk County prosecutors contend is Long admitting his involvement in a 2006 slaying. "I am not going to be played like no punk kid."

Now, prosecutors are asking the Supreme Judicial Court to let a jury hear Long's taped words - and possibly expand the way police can use electronic eavesdropping outside investigations of drug gangs and traditional organized crime figures.

"It should be allowed," Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said of the Long recording. Long is accused of participating in the shooting of Jamal A. Vaughn at a Quincy apartment building on Jan. 9, 2006.

In a transcript of the taped conversation filed in Norfolk Superior Court, Long tells the visitor he has a bad temper and had become enraged when Vaughn would not let him get his clothes that had been stored for him.

Long hints in the conversation that he had accomplices, although he identifies them only by first names. He also tries to cajole the woman visitor into lying to investigators about his whereabouts when Vaughn was shot.

"I hope I just didn't sell myself with this phone here," he is quoted as telling his visitor on the tape. "This is one time in my [expletive] life I have no remorse."

Norfolk Superior Court Judge Janet L. Sanders has ruled that the tape cannot be used as evidence because State Police detectives misled the court when they used another Long conversation to get approval to wiretap a visitor booth at the Norfolk County House of Correction.

Current law limits electronic eavesdropping to organized crime investigations and allows wiretaps only after police have exhausted normal investigative practices, the judge wrote. Neither condition was met when State Police bugged Long's meeting on Jan. 22, 2006, with a female acquaintance at the Norfolk County House of Correction, she said.

"This court concludes that it was not connected to organized crime as that term has been defined by the courts, but was rather a garden variety street shooting," Sanders wrote.

She threw out all electronic evidence against Long, a move Keating has asked the state's highest court to reverse. A hearing date has not been set.

Governor's Councilor Thomas Foley, who retired as a State Police colonel and relied on wiretaps while targeting fugitive South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, said the state law was created in the 1970s when gangsters were a major problem.

He said the law needs to be updated so that police can use all available tools to investigate crimes, especially murders.

"The police ought to have that tool when they need to use" it, especially in this day and age, he said. "We are not talking about 1969. It's long overdue."

Long's lawyer, Bernard Grossberg, said in a telephone interview that prosecutors and State Police have overreached in the Long case. Grossberg also represents a man being prosecuted on marijuana trafficking charges by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, which relied heavily on wiretaps in the case.

"They are pushing the limits of prior rulings" by the SJC, Grossberg said. "The statute is designed to be used in limited situations."

A second man, Paul Brown of Boston, has also been charged with murdering Vaughn, who authorities said was shot by two different handguns - a .38-caliber revolver and a 9mm semiautomatic. Authorities said Vaughn was shot after a heated argument and physical confrontation between him and Long.

Brown's lawyer, Kevin M. Mitchell, declined to comment, but in court papers has supported Sanders's decision.

A third Boston man, Courtney Forde, has also been charged with murder and has pleaded not guilty, but has not joined in challenging the taped conversation.

Randy Chapman, president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said privacy rights of innocent people are protected by the law as it now stands. He said there is no need to change the rules because police, if they have the evidence, get permission for the wiretaps. "It should be the last resort," he said.

In court papers, prosecutors said the evidence against Long includes testimony from a person who saw him near the shooting scene. They said they had no forensic evidence linking him to the crime. They needed, they said in court papers, to let Long tell the story of why and how Vaughn died.