Innocence Commission

Representative Benjamin Swan, 11th Hampden District, has re-introduced "An Act to Establish the Massachusetts Innocence Commission" which closely follows our goals. The bill number is H. 1638. The bill has acquired eleven co-signers, making the total the same number as Jesus' disciples.
The other representatives are: Gloria L. Fox, 7th Suffolk; Jason M. Lewis, 31st Middlesex; Carlos Henriquez, 5th Suffolk; Ellen Story, 3rd Hampshire; Aaron Vega, 5th Hampden; Denise Andrews, 2nd Franklin; Marjorie C. Decker, 25th Middlesex; Paul R. Heroux, 2nd Bristol; and David M. Rogers, 24th Middlesex. The two Senators who co-signed are William N. Brownsberger, 2nd Suffolk and Middlesex; and Bruce E. Tarr, 1st Essex and Middlesex. All are Democrats except Senator Tarr, who is a Republican. Senator Brownsberger and Representative Henriquez are members of the Joint Committee on the judiciary.
 
 
If any of these members of the house or senate represent you, please thank them.
 

The members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary can be found here.. Please urge the Committee Chairs and Vice-Chairs to support this legislation. And if any other members of the committee represent you, please send a special message of support to them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you are reading this, you may be someone who wants to work with us to make it more certain that innocent people are not convicted for someone else's crime. If that might be the case, please email me at jctkht1104@yahoo.com, or call me at 413-594-8500. I hope to hear from you.
 
Rev. Jonathan Tetherly, Chair, Innocence Commission Task Team

Help those who are unfairly imprisoned: support the "Act to Establish the Massachusetts Innocence Commission." Read more here.

The Innocence Commission Task Team was formed by the MACUCC Board of Directors in 2009, and confirmed by the MACUCC Annual Meeting in  2010. The concept of a task team on an innocence commission was presented to the Massachusetts Conference, UCC, as early as 2007.

The Task Team is composed of church members meeting monthly. As we have become more aware that innocent persons are being convicted and serving time in Massachusetts, we have become dedicated to making changes in the criminal justice system to make it less likely that the wrong person is convicted.

Our primary goal is to have the Commonwealth create an innocence commission, which would make recommendations to the legislature for improvements in the work of the police, the prosecutors, the courts, and the defense attorneys.

As the creation of the commission itself does not mean that improvements to the justice system will automatically happen, we are committed to supporting legislation favorable to our goal of a fairer, more accurate, criminal justice system in Massachusetts, whenever and however that legislation originates. Examples of such desired legislation would include scienific eyewitness procedures; videotaping custodial and other questioning of suspects and witnesses; careful and fully disclosed use of informants', cooperating indivduals' and inmates' testimonies; full disclosure of exculpatory information to the defendant and his/her counsel; better law enforcement training; independent, impartial and scientific reliability of forensic laboratory operations; oversight and discipline of police, prosecutorial, defense and judicial misconduct; payment by the Commonwealth of all reasonable trial preparation costs; the post-conviction DNA and other forensic testing law passed in 2012; and any other legislation that would make it less likely that innocent persons would be convicted.

We are not naive as to the difficulty of moving laws through the legislature. However, we believe that with the support of the members of our churches all over the Commonwealth, our goals can be achieved. We would warmly welcome anyone to the Task Team who believes they would like to be a part of this work. And we need to call upon many more of you to contact your representatives in government at an appororiate time. Together, we can create a fairer justice system and therefore a better society.

We would like to hear from you.

Grace and Peace

Rev. Jonathan C. Tetherly, Chair, Innocence Commission Task Team