A Blog Called Hope

This just in from the ProJo Blog…

Governor Carcieri will appeal to the state Supreme Court a judge’s ruling last week that he must take the stand at the criminal trials of seven Narragansett Indians arrested in a state police raid on a tribal smoke shop in July 2003, arguing that his testimony is not relevant to the cases.

Judge Susan E. McGuirl ruled in Providence County Superior Court Friday that the tribal members’ lawyers could call the governor to testify. She said the defendants’ rights to due process outweighed the governor’s claim of executive privilege, particularly since he made numerous public statements following the raid.

The judge limited any questioning to the instructions Carcieri gave Col. Steven M. Pare, then superintendent of the state police, in the days leading up to the raid.

“Governor Carcieri’s conversations with Col. Steven Pare have no relevance to the criminal charges against the seven defendants,” Michael Maynard, the spokesman for the governor, said in a statement. “The Governor believes that there is nothing that he could say that is in any way relevant to the charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, which is what this trial is about.”

The governor is stuck and he knows it. He knows what he said in the days after the smoke shop raid, and he knows that he’s been caught in a lie. Col. Pare testified in open court that he was given no order to withdraw if the State Police encountered resistance. But as we all know, that contradicts what the governor said during his initial press briefings. The governor’s staff is desperate to keep him off the stand, and, if you knew what they knew…who could blame them?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 9:43 am and is filed under GOP, Governor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.