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SJC rules against request to quash subpoena in Probation probe

Print | Comments () Posted by Jason Tuohey September 16, 2010 05:11 PM

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By Globe Staff

The state's high court today denied a request by a state lawmaker to quash a subpoena requiring him to answer questions about his influence on the state Probation Department.

Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati's wife, a former aide, and scores of financial supporters have received jobs in the department, which is now being investigated by independent counsel Paul F. Ware.

The Supreme Judicial Court rejected Petrolati's argument that Ware lacked the authority to issue the subpoena. In the seven-page decision, the court said the inquiry into the Probation Department does not create a constitutional conflict.

"The independent counsel is not seeking to 'supervise' the conduct of a legislator, but to determine whether a particular legislator has information relevant to his inquiry,'' the court said in the ruling which was not signed by an individual justice. "The goal of the independent counsel's inquiry is to inform the judiciary's conclusion regarding its own branch of government.''

In its ruling, the court wrote that it had given Ware authority to subpoena people who he
believed "possess information pertinent to his inquiry into alleged improprieties within the Probation Department."

Ware, an experienced public corruption prosecutor who is chief of litigation at Goodwin Procter of Boston, was tapped in May to perform an investigation of the state's Probation Department after a Globe Spotlight Team report detailed chronic patronage and mismanagement in the agency.

Read more about the Spotlight report and Petrolati's challenge of the subpoena.