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A teary Charlie Baker urges action one last time on dangerousness and revenge porn loopholes
"I sometimes wonder whose side we're on."
After listening to over 45 minutes of stories from victims of domestic violence and revenge pornography, it took Gov. Charlie Baker several moments to gather himself, before delivering a remarkable admission through welled eyes.
“I’ve never been so distressed about my incompetence and my inability to actually deliver for someone as I am right now,” a teary Baker said.
“Because I know how many people you speak for here in the Commonwealth,” he continued. “And I know that, in other states, you have a framework that provides you with the support and the protection that you don’t just deserve, you’re entitled to. … I sometimes wonder whose side we’re on.”
The governor’s emotional remarks came during a roundtable discussion at the Plymouth Public Library on Wednesday, during which his administration announced it was — for the third time — introducing legislation aimed at providing new protections to survivors of crimes like domestic violence, sexual assault, and the harmful distribution of explicit images, sometimes referred to as revenge porn.
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Specifically, one bill would make a number of change to the state’s “dangerousness” hearing process, allowing judges to order that individuals charged with certain crimes be detained before their trail without bail. The bill would expand the list of crimes that are grounds for a dangerousness hearing to include statutory rape and indecent assault and battery on a child, as well as allow an individual’s history of “serious criminal convictions” to be considered.
It would also allow prosecutors to seek a dangerousness hearing if a released defendant violates the terms of their bail (currently, they can only request a dangerousness hearing during a defendant’s first court appearance or forfeit the ability), require police to fingerprint all arrests, and make it a felony to cut off a court-ordered GPS device.
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The other bill would close a loophole in the state’s revenge porn law, making it a felony to distribute a sexually explicit image of someone for purposes of revenge or embarrassment, even if the photo or video was originally given with consent.
While the current law addresses the non-consensual recording of a person, it does not cover instances where someone distributes an initially consensually taken or shared image to others against the subject’s will. The bill would also direct minors who distribute revenge porn to a diversion program and give judges the power to order that such images be permanently destroyed.
Baker’s administration has pushed for the changes twice before, most recently filing both bills in 2019. However, the effort stalled in the Democrat-controlled Legislature, amid concerns from public defenders and racial justice advocates that the dangerousness hearing changes would exacerbate racial disparities.
Now, the Republican administration is taking one last shot at getting the bills passed ahead of Baker’s final year as governor.
“Oftentimes people think we re-file a bill, well, just to re-file,” Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said on Wednesday. “‘Maybe it’s not that important because it didn’t get done the first time.’ … We as leaders in this area need to do a better job, frankly, of telling the Legislature and the community at-large why this is important.”
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The event’s discussion featured a number of agonizing anecdotes from survivors of physical and sexual violence who said their experiences could have been avoided if the proposed changes had been in place.
“Victims often suffer, not only [from] the abuse of the abuser, but the lack of respect and dignity given to them by the system, which in turn gives the defendant many rights and exits to avoid punishment,” said one woman, who said she was hit and spit on by an ex-partner while he was on probation, after lying about how his GPS device was cut off.
Another woman recalled how she was physically assaulted and raped outside a motel in 1988 by an accused rapist who was out on bail.
“That was the beginning of my 30-plus year journey of living in fear and it was the end of my naivety,” the woman said, describing the years of difficulty sleeping and “suffocating fear” that followed until her attacker’s death.
Sandra Blatchford, the executive director of the South Shore Resource & Advocacy Center, read a story of another woman, who said naked photos she had sent to a high school classmate were distributed around the school after she came forward about being sexually assaulted by him. However, under the law in Massachusetts and other states, she was the individual who could be charged.
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In the age of Snapchat and other mobile messaging apps, the woman said the laws could be more “spectrum-like.” Under the proposed bill, prosecutors would still be able to bypass the diversion program and pursue cases involving minors in the juvenile justice system, but the intended focus is on education.
“Diversion programs should be implemented for cases with less serious intent, but be taken more seriously when vicious revengeful and malicious dissemination of child pornography occurs,” the woman’s story read.
Polito said that Massachusetts is just one of two states without a felony law on the books addressing adult revenge porn.
Baker said he didn’t understand the hesitation among state lawmakers.
“I think Massachusetts has always prided itself on being a progressive and fair and just community when it comes to its laws, especially when it comes to laws that involve aggression and violence and assault on women,” he said. “And I think in this particular case, people had a chance to hear today that our laws are failing many, many people in these circumstances and it’s time they get fixed.”
When it comes to the dangerousness hearing bill, the governor said he believed it was an “easy solve,” giving district attorneys “the ability to pursue a dangerousness hearing based on information as it becomes available,” rather than on one single day.
Baker also suggested that broadening the definition of alleged offenses that can be grounds for a dangerousness hearing shouldn’t be controversial.
“I think sexual assault on a child should be considered something for which you could ask for a dangerousness hearing,” he said. “I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find anybody in Massachusetts who doesn’t.”
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