News from State Senator Pat Jehlen

“Bread and Roses” Strike Centennial Commemoration

On Monday, March 12, at 7:00pm at the Somerville Public Library, 79 Highland Avenue, Jim Beauchesne of the Lawrence Heritage Park and Jim Green of UMass Boston will discuss the “Bread and Roses” mill strike of 1912 in Lawrence.

The strike has been called “the Occupy movement of 1912,” and the centennial celebration is drawing attention to parallels with today’s economy and protests, according to Senator Pat Jehlen, who arranged the presentation.

In 1912, workers faced dangerous working conditions and starvation wages, while mill owners enjoyed a concentration of wealth unrivaled until today.  In January, 35,000 Lawrence mill workers — largely women, children, and immigrants — went on strike for two months, fighting bitter cold, hunger, violence and arrest.  On March 12, workers won the first major labor victory in Massachusetts.  Their strike led to better pay and working conditions for 300,000 New England textile workers and the first national child labor laws.  It was also known as “the singing strike,” as music brought together immigrants who spoke 25 different languages.

For more information, call Sen. Jehlen’s office at 617-722-1578 or visit http://breadandrosescentennial.org/.

Governor Patrick Signs DNA Access Bill

Governor Patrick signed a bill that will allow certain individuals convicted of crimes to access DNA evidence to help overturn their convictions, Senator Patricia Jehlen announced. The law puts Massachusetts in line with 48 other states in providing a way to use DNA testing to exonerate wrongfully-convicted people.

“This long overdue bill will help those in the horrifying position of being locked up in prison for a crime that they did not commit,” said Sen. Jehlen. “We should use our knowledge of science to ensure that innocent people are not imprisoned and that the guilty are convicted.”

Before this bill, access to DNA evidence to overturn convictions often could only be achieved through negotiating with the sentencing judge or the prosecutor. Different prosecutors and judges had different standards leading to confusion and inequitable outcomes. This bill will standardize the process to get access to DNA evidence.

The bill would allow individuals who have been convicted of a crime to file a motion with the courts requesting access to evidence for forensic testing that could prove their innocence. Defendants would have to meet certain standards that show that the material in question has not been tested previously in the way sought, testing was not available at the time of conviction or the material itself was unavailable, and the evidence is admissible in court.

Similar bills had failed in the legislature in previous sessions. For this session, many stakeholders, including prosecutors, police officials, defense attorneys, and judges, were brought in to help craft a bill that would be acceptable to all groups.

Senator Jehlen has worked on wrongful convictions for years. When she was in the House of Representatives, she was the lead sponsor of An Act to Provide Compensation for Certain Erroneous Felony Convictions. This bill, which provided a cause of action for certain individuals wrongfully convicted, was passed and signed into law in 2004.

While working on that bill, Sen. Jehlen met men who remained in prison for years after requesting DNA tests. When those tests were finally granted, they proved that the men in prison were innocent. In one case, the test even led to catching the real criminal.

One such individual was Dennis Maher. Mr. Maher was convicted of two rapes and a sexual assault. Nine years into that sentence, in 1993, he first heard about DNA testing. Knowing he was innocent of the crimes he thought this could be a way out of the nightmare of wrongful imprisonment. He fought through procedural hurdles for a decade before finally getting his DNA results back in 2003, which proved that he was innocent. He spent over 19 years in prison for a crime he never committed. The last 10 of which were due to a confusing and arbitrary DNA testing policy.

Executive Office of Elder Affairs Releases Recommendations for Dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease

The Executive Office of Elder Affairs released the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders State Plan Recommendations on Tuesday, February 7, according to Senator Patricia Jehlen, the Senate Chair of the Elder Affairs Committee. These recommendations provide a road map to help improve the quality of life for the many families in Massachusetts affected by Alzheimer’s while minimizing the public and private costs of this devastating disease.

“Alzheimer’s is a devastating and fatal illness affecting more and more people,” said Sen. Jehlen. “It is now the sixth leading cause of death in the US. These recommendations should improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents living with Alzheimer’s or caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s.”

Victoria Halal, Elder Affairs Committee Director from Sen. Jehlen’s Office, was a member of the Steering Committee that created the recommendations and sat on the Access to Services work group.

These recommendations include goals and strategies that are intended to be implemented over the next five years by the Executive Office of Health & Human Services, the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, the Alzheimer’s Association of Massachusetts/New Hampshire, and other stakeholders. This public/private partnership, the Alzheimer’s Team, will establish and oversee taskforces to address the recommendations and strategies in this report.

The recommendations focus on improving access to services and information for people with Alzheimer’s, improving and expanding support and education for those taking care of family members with Alzheimer’s, developing an infrastructure within the medical community that will enhance the quality of the services offered, improving public awareness of the risk factors for Alzheimer’s, and creating statewide recommendations and minimum standards for the quality of care.

In a related measure, on February 16 the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing favorably reported out of committee “An Act Relative to Dementia Patients in Long Term Care Facilities”. This bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Jehlen, would create regulations establishing minimum standards for dementia special care units in nursing homes to ensure safety and quality. Currently, Massachusetts is one of only 6 states without regulations requiring certain standards for special care units.

– Information from State Senator Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville, Medford)