Pubdate: Sat, 03 Dec 2005
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Suzanne Smalley and Donovan Slack, Globe Staff

POLICE FEAR HOMICIDE WITNESS LIST GOT OUT

Names Said Found After Car Chase

Boston police have launched an investigation into how an internal 
police report containing the names of witnesses in a homicide case 
wound up in the hands of a 20-year-old Jamaica Plain man fleeing 
police in a car linked to a fatal shooting hours earlier, two police 
officials briefed on the investigation said.

Police are concerned that someone in law enforcement may have given 
the report to a criminal suspect who could have used it to target 
police informants or witnesses, the officials said. The department's 
Internal Affairs division began trying to trace the report on 
Thursday, a third law enforcement official said.

The document is an investigative summary written by gang unit 
officers for their supervisor, according to the third official, who, 
like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the 
sensitivity of the case.

Finding the internal report outside department possession alarmed 
police, who have been under fire for a surge in crime and who have 
not been able to identify suspects in 70 percent of homicide cases 
this year -- often because witnesses won't help police and 
prosecutors for fear of retaliation. Law enforcement officials have 
expressed increasing worry in recent months that those who cooperate 
with police are identified and targeted for violence by criminals.

The internal report with the witness names was found in the 
possession of James Finch, one of five men arrested early Tuesday 
after a high-speed chase that started in Dorchester and ended in 
Milton. One of the officials said Finch told police a friend had 
mailed it to him, and investigators said it might have come from a 
prison inmate whose lawyer had legal access to such a document.

Police officials declined to speak publicly about details of the 
case, or to describe the contents of the police document, confirming 
only that Finch was arrested with the document and that police had 
seized it. "The case is under investigation," said a department 
spokesman, Officer John Boyle.

According to an arrest report obtained by the Globe, the case started 
with an attempted traffic stop in Dorchester. Officers tried to pull 
Finch and the others over near the corner of Norfolk Street and 
Woodrow Avenue because their car did not have an inspection sticker.

But the green Chevy Lumina sped off toward Mattapan, striking another 
car in a Blue Hill Avenue intersection and reaching speeds exceeding 
120 miles per hour before police and state troopers stopped it on 
Route 138 in Milton, the report said.

Police smashed a window to extract the driver, 21-year-old Nasean 
Johnson of Mattapan, who had refused to get out of the car. They 
cuffed him, Finch, and the other passengers, Charles Devoe, 19, of 
Roxbury, Lamory Gray, 20, of Jamaica Plain, and Stanley Young, 18, of 
Roxbury, according to the arrest report.

Police found a spent shell casing in the back seat of the car, the 
internal police document in Finch's possession, and several bags of 
crack cocaine down the street, the report said. All five men were 
arrested and charged with drug possession. Johnson also was charged 
with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and failure to stop.

The timing of the car chase -- which started two hours after 
17-year-old Carl Searcy was gunned down in Roxbury -- and the fact 
that the car was registered to an address across the street from the 
shooting prompted police to seize the car for homicide investigators, 
the arrest report said.

It's unclear whether Searcy's name appears on the internal police 
report, and neither Finch nor the others has been charged in 
connection with the killing.

Finch's lawyer, Jay Odunukwe, said Thursday that he was not aware 
that the police report found in his client's pocket listed witness names.

Odunukwe also said Finch had nothing to do with the drugs found near 
the car. "He has no prior convictions," Odunukwe said. "They found 
drugs 100 yards away, and somehow they tied it to the people in the car."

Unless judges order otherwise, documents listing witnesses must be 
made available to suspected offenders and their lawyers during the 
discovery phase of criminal trials, defense attorneys say. Those 
documents could include an internal investigative summary by gang 
officers if it's part of a prosecution's case or if it quotes 
witnesses to be used at trial.

"Anything the prosecution's going to use in the case has to be turned 
over," said Michael Tumposky, a criminal defense lawyer in Boston.

It's a practice some state legislators and Boston law enforcement 
officials want to stop. A bill approved by the state Senate in 
October and supported by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley 
and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole would restrict 
defense attorneys' ability to give grand jury documents with witness 
names to criminal defendants. The bill has yet to pass the House, but 
could be voted on in January when legislators resume their session.

Its main sponsor, Senator Jarrett T. Barrios of Cambridge, said 
yesterday that he wants to amend the bill to cover other documents 
that include witness names. "The defendant might be in jail awaiting 
trial, but they have associates on the street who can successfully 
intimidate the witness from testifying," he said.

Maria Cramer of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
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