For those who were hoping Whitey Bulger would get the push to the fast track on the murder indictments, you have your wish. Judge Mark Wolf ruled today the petition filed by Carmen Ortiz to dismiss the racketeering charges will be granted. This is a blow to the Bulger defense who were pushing to have all the charges tried at once. With all the charges intact, that would have left Judge Wolf in place for whole trial. Now this moves the trial to Judge Richard Stearns courtroom. Not sure how this will work out for either side but definitely helps the prosecution. Wolf had past history with the Bulger cases and outcomes did not bode well for the feds during those cases. This gives them a clean slate to work with.
The second part of the hearing today was based on whether Bulger would receive a taxpayer funded attorney or not. Judge Wolf ruled that Bulger will have a court appointed public defender and the attorney is J.W. Carney Jr. This is a slap in the face for all taxpayers in this area. Allow me to now rant on this decision. Not really sure what the big deal is here but this man should be allowed to use his own money to pay for this trial. I know the whole, "It's money illegally obtained" nonsense and it can't be used. Why should the taxpayers be penalized though? Isn't there an exception to every rule? I would've liked to seen one here. Well, I guess he wins one out of the two battles today.
Now that we have all the pretrial drama done, let's take a look at the who's who for the trial. Sitting at judge now is Richard Stearns. Prosecutor is Carmen Ortiz. Public defender is J.W. Carney Jr and the accused is James "Whitey" Bulger. The charges will be for the alleged 19 murders. Ok, looks pike we have our necessary information. The questions I have is how many feds will go down if Bulger talks? Which one of the players will use this trial as a career springboard? How much will it cost me to fund a losing battle?
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