`Speed hearing' on new justice bills; 3-minute commentaries.

Byline: John J. Monahan

BOSTON - When it comes to legislation involving justice, there is a logjam on Beacon Hill.

And yesterday more than 500 people got caught up in it, waiting for up to six hours to give their three-minute commentaries on more than 227 bills put up for a public hearing in a single afternoon session before the Judiciary Committee.

Even before the noontime start of the hearing, it was standing room only in Gardner Auditorium, where groups including crime victims, police advocates, marijuana reformers, transgender advocates, nurses, legislators and prosecutors packed the largest room in the Statehouse for the marathon public hearing.

Legislators and constitutional officers, who customarily speak first at legislative bill hearings, took up the first 2-1/2hours, and even some of them were asked to keep their comments brief.

Lt.Gov. Timothy P. Murray and state Secretary of Public Safety Kevin Burke teamed up to testify together for an expansion of the state's victims' bill of rights, a bill to limit gun purchases to one a month, and another to join the National Instant Criminal Background Check System improvements established by a 2007 federal law adopted in the wake of the Virginia Tech student massacre.

As Mr. Burke was explaining the gun bills, Senate Chairman Cynthia Creem, D-Newton, asked them to speed up and finish their testimony so others could speak.

Also rushed through their commentaries were victims of crimes and families of murder victims, such as one woman who told the committee she and her family were harassed in a Western Massachusetts courthouse by the family and friends of the man who killed her daughter and grandson in 1993, having stabbed her daughter 57 times, leaving a knife in her eye.

She said because victims' family members had to sit in the public waiting area of the courthouse, she and her family were "tormented" by the defendant's friends, some of whom glared at and ridiculed her family throughout the trial.

She backed a bill to establish a separate waiting area in courts for victims and their families.

The hearing proceeded with speakers skipping from discussion of one bill to the next.

Attorney General Martha Coakley gave brief comments on a bill she is backing to increase the corporate penalties for murder. She said she cut her six pages of prepared testimony to two, mentioning that after a fatal ceiling collapse in the Big Dig's Interstate-90 tunnel three years ago, the state found the maximum penalty was only $1,000 for corporate manslaughter.

Ms. Coakley left out of her testimony the details of the investigation into Milena Del Valle's death in the tunnel, not even mentioning the victim's name or the company found negligent. She said the bill would raise the penalty for corporate manslaughter to up to a maximum of $250,000. She also said she was supporting adoption of the expanded Victims Bill of Rights law to broaden categories to provide burial expenses and other financial assistance to victims of violent crimes.

Sen. Michael O. Moore, D-Millbury, urged passage of a law to impose a minimum 90-day sentence for those convicted of assault and battery of a registered nurse, and Sen. Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester, made a three-minute case for the bill she is sponsoring to outlaw transgender discrimination.

Testimony on that bill was reserved for several hours of the meeting after 3 p.m., further squeezing the time for testimony on the other 216 bills.

State Rep. Karyn E. Polito, D-Shrewsbury, appeared with Shrewsbury Police Sgt. James Lonchiadis Jr., son of a Shrewsbury police officer with the same name who was killed on duty in 1975, to seek longer sentences for those convicted of killing police officers. She said Edgar J. Bowser III was sentenced to life for the crime but was released on parole after serving 29 years.

The bill would require those convicted of murdering a police officer to serve life without the possibility of parole. The bill would also prevent commutation of sentences of those convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer from being commuted later to second-degree murder.

She testified, as well, for a law to impose a mandatory sentence of at least 10 years for rape of a child under 16 with use of force or weapons and a mandatory 5-year sentence for a first offense or rape of a child. More than an hour later others testified for that bill as well.

Others testified for and against bills involving the state's new marijuana decriminalization, proposed changes to restraining order laws, and the controversial proposal to ban "devocalizing" of dogs.

Besides those 227 bills, the committee is also handling bills to reform the state's criminal offender record system and a major bill to change the state's mandatory minimum drug sentences.