"I am very frustrated and disappointed at the Governor's proposal.
As amended, Governor Patrick takes the teeth out of the bill's intent. The House and Senate conferees worked very hard to listen to both proponents and opponents of this bill and we put forward a balanced bill that reflected all parties. This proposal by the Governor is not supported by the majority of Massachusetts' residents, and should not be adopted. This bill is meant to take the most heinous and violent criminals off the street by serving the mandatory sentence for their third offense.
The Governor's proposal guts the intent of the original legislation, which begs the question, why pass this bill if we are giving our most violent criminals any chance of parole after serving in our state prisons twice before?"
