The state Department of Correction made errors that contributed to a judge's release of Daniel T. Tavares Jr. without bail, setting in motion events that ended with Tavares' alleged murder of a Washington state couple last week, according to his former lawyer.
The department took nearly 18 months to file charges of assaulting prison guards against Tavares Jr., waiting until a week before he was to complete a 16-year sentence for stabbing his mother to death. That delay allowed the defense lawyer to argue that the charges had little merit and were simply a last-minute maneuver to hold Tavares.
The department also never told prosecutors about evidence, such as a letter in which Tavares threatened to kill then-Governor Mitt Romney, that could have been used to keep Tavares behind bars, according to the lawyer.
Convinced Tavares was not a risk to flee, Superior Court Judge Kathe M. Tuttman released him without bail, and he soon fled to Washington, where last week he was charged with shooting his neighbors, a newlywed couple.
Tuttman has become a lightning rod for criticism and a figure in the Republican presidential race, with Rudy Giuliani using her as a springboard to criticize Romney's record on crime. Romney, who appointed Tuttman, called for her resignation, saying she showed an inexcusable lack of judgment.
But several lawyers, including one involved in the case, said yesterday if there is any blame, it belongs with the Correction Department, not Tuttman.
"She followed the letter of the law and did what she was sworn to do," said Barry P. Dynice, a Leominster lawyer who represented Tavares before Tuttman. "If you're going to hold anybody responsible for this guy, you hold DOC. He was living with them for 16 years. Who would know more about Mr. Tavares than his jailers for the last 16 years?"
Tuttman's boss, Chief Justice Barbara J. Rouse, also broke her silence yesterday, saying Tuttman "is living every judge's nightmare: that a principled decision based on the law and the information provided to her was followed by tragic events over which she had no control."
Yesterday, Governor Deval Patrick asked Public Safety Secretary Kevin M. Burke to review the case to determine whether it exposed gaps in the correction system.
In an escalating war of words over the last three days while campaigning in New Hampshire, Giuliani has questioned Romney's judgment in appointing Tuttman, a career prosecutor, to the bench last year. In response, Romney has pointed to Giuliani's close ties to Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who was indicted this month on corruption charges, accusing the former New York mayor on CNN yesterday of "throwing stones from glass houses."
Romney has also disputed Giuliani's criticism of his anticrime record. The murder rate in Massachusetts rose from 2.7 per 100,000 people in 2002, the year before Romney took office, to 2.9 in 2006, his last year in office, according to the FBI. The state's overall violent crime rate, however, declined during his administration.
Tavares was in prison for his 1991 manslaughter conviction in his mother's death when he allegedly assaulted guards in December 2005 and February 2006. But the Department of Correction did not ask prosecutors to file charges until June, said Tim Connolly, a spokesman for the Worcester district attorney's office.
Diane Wiffin, a Correction Department spokeswoman, said yesterday the charges were "brought in a timely fashion," noting Tavares was still behind bars. She also said the department gave prosecutors "all the information related" to the case.
In June, a District Court judge held Tavares on $50,000 bail for each of the two assault counts, which kept him behind bars after his scheduled release on June 14. On July 16, Tavares asked Tuttman to review his bail.
According to a transcript of the hearing, Dynice asked for no bail, arguing that Tavares would not flee because he planned to live with his sister in Dighton and had a job lined up as a welder.
Prosecutors sought to keep the bail in place, pointing out that Tavares had a history of violence.
Tuttman released Tavares on personal recognizance and ordered probation officials to check on him by phone every three days.
Probation officials said Tavares, 41, was freed on July 16, reported to them on July 18, but then failed to show up for his next hearing July 23, when a warrant was issued for his arrest. Last week, Tavares was arrested in the slayings of Brian and Beverly Mauck in a rural area south of Tacoma, where he had been living with a woman he met online while in prison.
Edward P. Ryan Jr., a former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, said Tuttman did nothing wrong because, under state law, bail hearings are intended only to weigh defendants' risk of fleeing, not the likelihood that they will commit another crime.
"For the governor to back away from this judge is nothing more than political expediency and cowardice in the face of fire," Ryan said yesterday.
After appointing a commission in 2003 to revamp the prison system, Romney left several key recommendations on the shelf. One would have beefed up programs for inmates and required closer monitoring after their release.
