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WENDY MURPHY: Convicts shouldn’t expect ‘privacy’ rights





































The Patriot Ledger


Posted May 23, 2009 @ 05:00 AM


Last update May 23, 2009 @ 12:28 PM





QUINCY —



The
ACLU in Massachusetts has been scaring people with a fear-mongering
claim that cops are violating CORI (Criminal Offender Record
Information) laws by searching through the state’s criminal records
database to see whether certain celebrities have rap sheets. They’re
using the story to gain support for a proposed amendment to CORI that
will provide even more privacy protections for criminal records.


Gov.
Patrick wants tighter CORI laws, too. Yet neither Patrick nor the ACLU
can explain why a person convicted of a crime should expect to have any
“privacy” rights. Maybe this is because there is no rational way to
attach the word “privacy” to criminal conduct – which is why most
states don’t have CORI laws.


When a person is convicted of a
public offense, in a public courtroom, prosecuted with public dollars
and reported in public news sources, nothing about i
t is “private.”
Indeed, calling such information private is sort of like watching an
eight months pregnant woman enter and leave an “obstetrics hospital”
and then having the person in charge of medical records claim that
“privacy rights” forbid disclosure of whether she’s pregnant. Some
things will never be private – no matter how many laws you pile on.


Massachusetts
already has an ignoble reputation as a state where convicted felons
have more privacy rights in their rap sheets than law-abiding innocent
victims have in their medical records. In one recent case pending in
Dedham District Court, a sex assault victim not only was forced to turn
over her entire counseling file to her attacker, she then had to spend
more than $500 of her own money to facilitate the distribution of her
privileged records to the man accused of assaulting her. Had the man
not committed a crime, he would never have been allowed to see her
private files. And frankly, had he stolen her money, rather than
committing a sex offense, her files would be protected because we have
a strange way of only violating the privacy rights of sex crimes
victims. And now he has the right to use the victim’s constitutionally
protected personal medical files against her in court, so the whole
world can hear how she suffered after being violated. When the trial is
over, if the man is convicted, all the victim’s private information
that comes out at trial will remain available
to the world, forever,
because there are no protections for victims’ privacy. But the
criminal’s conviction will become “private” under CORI.


Notwithstanding
this insanity, Deval Patrick and the ACLU argue that more privacy
protections will enable convicted criminals to avoid social stigma and
obtain employment.


State Sen. Scott Brown thinks the amendment is a move in the wrong direction.



“The existing CORI law already imposes burdens on employers because
they don’t have ready-access to criminal records of potential
employees. And the public has almost no access to information, which
means parents can’t easily protect their children from dangerous
offenders who live or work nearby.”


What we really need,
says Brown, are “more privacy rights for victims and CORI reforms that
broaden the scope and improve the overall accuracy of the information
contained within the criminal records. We also need to include
pertinent information such as psychological evaluations that reveal
criminals’ tendencies toward future dangerousness.”


Given
the political stripes of our myopic Legislature, Sen. Brown’s concerns
are likely to end up in a circular file, but the liberal majority
should beware the public’s growing wrath. When lawmakers do dumb
things, people will rise up and take matters into their own hands.


Some
victim advocates are already talking about creating their own criminal
records database,
and posting it on the Internet. Private citizens can
easily maintain their own files of public information about criminal
cases – and share it with the entire planet – for free. Because CORI
only applies to the government, there’s little lawmakers can do to stop
them.


Full disclosure of such important information is good
for a healthy democracy. Reformed criminals may well deserve a second
chance and a good job, but the public can hardly be expected to forgive
a criminal for past mistakes if the past is hidden in a secret
government file.



                    Wendy Murphy is a leading victims
rights advocate and nationally recognized television legal analyst. She
is an adjunct professor at New England Law in Boston and radio talk
show host. She can be reached at