Baker said his proposed changes, which he announced at the State House on Tuesday, are needed to bring the state's 1968 wiretapping law up to speed with modern communications technology and free law enforcement to employ wiretaps in investigating the most serious crimes. Current law prohibits police from using wiretaps except to investigate offenses committed "in connection with organized crime," which excludes a wide variety of serious and violent crimes.
"The world has changed. Times change; things change. And we've been unable, as a commonwealth, to secure judicial support for wiretaps in situations that involve all sorts of serious crimes," Baker said in a meeting with Patriot Ledger reporters and editors ahead of Tuesday's announcement.
Baker's proposed update would allow police to seek wiretap warrants for investigations into some of the most serious crimes — including murder, rape, human trafficking, and possession of explosives or chemical, radiological or chemical weapons — regardless of whether they are related to organized crime. It would also allow wiretaps for less serious offenses, including drug distribution and witness intimidation.
Under the changes, wiretaps would remain a tool of "last resort" that police can only use when they can show a judge that they have no other way to gather evidence of a given crime. Wiretap warrants can only be issued by a superior court judge and authorized by an elected district attorney or attorney general.
Michael Morrissey, the Norfolk County district attorney and a longtime supporter of an expanded wiretapping law, said his office has only sought one wiretap in his 10 years in office, in part because police must prove to a judge that they've exhausted all other options first.
"It's very hard, and they're expensive, but they're an awesome tool," he said.
The lawmakers who wrote the original 1968 law had focused on organized crime, then a major problem in the country, because it "carries on its activities through layers of insulation and behind a wall of secrecy," according to the statute.
"Normal investigative procedures are not effective in the investigation of illegal acts committed by organized crime," the statute reads. "Therefore, law enforcement officials must be permitted to use modern methods of electronic surveillance, under strict judicial supervision, when investigating these organized criminal activities."
The wording of the current law has led courts to throw out wiretap evidence in cases where prosecutors were unable to prove that charges were related to organized crime. In 2011, the Supreme Judicial Court threw out recorded evidence related to a fatal drive-by shooting in Brockton because the defendant was part of a street gang, not an organized criminal group.
Prosecutors were still able to get a conviction without the evidence, but the case prompted two justices, including the current chief justice, Ralph Gants, to call for changes to the state's wiretapping law. Writing in their decision, the justices said that because of the narrow wording of the law, "electronic surveillance is lost as a tool to investigate and prosecute a substantial share of the murders and shootings that occur in this commonwealth."
District attorneys and the last two attorneys general have called for updates to the wiretapping law for years, but previous legislative efforts have died in committee.
"This legislation has been a priority of my office for years, as we have long recognized that we need updated statutes and tools to match the organizations we face and to fight the most violent and egregious crimes in the 21st century," Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement.
Baker's proposal would leave in place a provision in the law that prohibits civilians from recording others without their knowledge. The law makes Massachusetts one of just 11 states that prohibit the secret single-party recordings of conversations; most others allow people to secretly record any conversation as long as they are part of it.
Baker said he heard no call for amending that part of the law, which carries a jail sentence of up to 21/2 years and a fine of up to $10,000.
©2017 The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
