An Open Letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Regarding the Death-in-Custody of Tamerlan

Massachusetts’ current attorney general Maura Healey

An open letter from Mary Maxwell, PhD, LLB, 13 September, 2015

Dear Madam Attorney General,

I live in Australia but I am a native of Massachusetts. At the moment I am very concerned about a problem in Massachusetts. I wrote to Governor Baker about it, but I later realized you are the key person to contact.

The problem in a nutshell is this: someone murdered Tamerlan Tsarnaev in April 2013 while he was in police or FBI custody. As you are the chief law enforcement officer in Massachusetts, this problem falls to you.

Please do not pretend you don’t know about the death. Granted, the public was told by CNN, The Boston Globe, and every other media outlet that Tamerlan himself fired a gun at police and was killed in self-defense by the police. Or – the alternative story – that his brother accidentally dragged him via the wheels of an SUV. It is not true at all. It is a pack of lies. The proof is in, thanks to the ‘podstava’ video.

You are holding a very difficult and scary job. I assume that if you make a wrong move “they” will harm you, or more likely your loved ones. Judging from what was revealed in Whitey Bulger’s recent trial, there is an Irish mafia in Boston just as likely to commit hits as is the Italian mafia.

That is not to say that ethnicity is of any relevance here. The fact is that some powerful people at the top of the US, or more likely the top of the world, now have the ability to kill, and lie, almost as if these were not forbidden behaviors. It is simply becoming the norm to act as violently as one wishes, and for a torrent of words to pour forth from the media, to cover it up.

Maybe it would have been good for you to campaign on that very issue! But you, instead stuck with the old chestnuts. Your website said: “My experience, drive and vision for the office make me the best candidate … I have been on the front lines fighting for fairness, equality and justice …. This requires being proactive… I am deeply committed to fighting corruption.”

Back to the subject of the power of some (unnamed) persons. I hope you have read an article that appeared on Paul Craig Roberts’ website on August 18, 2015. It reveals an affidavit filed with the US Federal District Court by Maret Tsarnaeva, who is a lawyer, concerning the way the defense team of Jahar interacted with the family in Russia.

Suffice it to say that the result of the visit of the defense team was that the parents were threatened into signing a letter to Jahar “or else.” The parents then duly wrote to Jahar. That is, they signed a letter that the defense had prepared for them! instructing their son to confess. That is why he he “confessed.”

I’ll quote what Maret Tsarnaeva said, under penalty of perjury, about a woman named Charlene , an independent investigator from the US defender’s office who was sent to Russia by the defense team, accompanied by Jane, a social worker who had dealt with Dzhokar (at the Fort Devens brig, I believe):

“I was not present but my sister Malkan, revealed to me [immediately] the details of the conversation. She … has authorized me to state for her that Charlene stated flatly that the federal public defender’s office in Boston knew that Dzhokhar was not guilty as charged, and that their office was under enormous pressure from law enforcement agencies and high levels of the government of the United States not to resist conviction.”

So, Madam Attorney General, does it get any worse than this? Have you any jobs to perform that are more pressing than the possible counteracting of what has happened in the Tsarnaev case? And can you furnish safety for one Massachusetts citizen today, namely Jahar Tsarnaev, who is at the tender age of 21?

They might knock him off in the federal Supermax prison, you know. It could easily be done by a so-called “suicide.” Think of Slobodan Milosovic’s convenient death in prison at the Hague. Not that our state has a clean record. Albert DeSalvo was stabbed to death in the most secure part of Walpole Prison.

So how to accomplish your mission? Well, first let’s talk about you. You have made a big deal of being a member of the LGBT community, and you have also spoken of glass ceilings. I think your philosophy or ideology contains a plank that says gender should not matter, or that women are to be considered the same as men.

Being a Republican conservative myself, not to mention being a Wilsonite sociobiologist to the core, I think gender does matter and also should matter. I think “la difference” is one of the great features of human life and I regret that men are being advised by “contemporary culture” that their services are no longer required as protector of the family and nation.

That said, I do realize that gender roles, as underpinned by instinct, can lead to problems.  Right now I see all these powerful men as being “men gone wild.” It is very pathetic that their very maleness causes them to be in a bind (a bind that harms the whole of society, of course).

What I am referring to is the male need to maintain his status in the hierarchy – or fear death. This, today, means he has to kowtow to a ridiculous extent. Picture, for example, every Watertown policeman’s inability to speak out against the FBI (and you know all cops hate the FBI). Picture a Congressman’s assumption that he can’t stand up to the bosses on Capitol Hill. Yes, this horrendous set-up is biology’s fault. The men think it is required that they put up with the system.

I am thinking, O Maura Healey, that you, being female, are not so psychologically paralyzed as the guys. I know I am not paralyzed; I often take a chance of making a fool of myself. You can right now make a strong move, and very likely you wouldn’t come off as a fool! If you grabbed your scepter (or whatever it is you hold on that job, the sword of justice, perhaps) everyone would take courage from that.

Honest, the citizenry of Boston, surely the most educated population that ever lived, would be astounded. “Joan of Arc” they might cry. Anyway, all I’m saying is that the situation being such that the men can’t break through the barrier (Rand Paul an exception?), the moment is ripe for you to do it.

Look at the simplicity of what you could do to change the world. You could call a press conference to announce (as is already patent to some of us) that Tamerlan died in custody. He was not in a shoot-out, and the bruises on his face – visible in his mortuary photo – probably came from being beaten up in custody.  I dare you to say “This is not South Africa where Steve Biko, age 28, was smashed to a pulp on the floor of a police station.”

Note: with rare exceptions, such as Donald Woods, Breyten Breytenbach, and Desmond Tutu, no man grabbed a microphone to say “Uh-uh. No can do.” Male persons have a problem doing that. But Maura Healey can do it. Yes she can.

She can say “Excuse me, here in Massachusetts no one can beat to death a person who has been arrested.” That wouldn’t exactly be a controversial position to hold would it?

I was surprised in your campaign that you said “The Attorney General is the people’s lawyer.” I have been trying for a long time to figure out if that holds true of our federal Attorney General. I want to believe it is so. But I think George Washington appointed the first attorney general more for the purpose of advising the president as to the legality of this or that. Pray, what is your basis for saying you are the people’s lawyer?

Since at least the presidency of George Bush in 1990, all the attorneys general have appeared to be private lawyers for the government side of any issue. I can’t think of a single instance in which Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales (oh please don’t make me mention the name of Michael Mukasey) or Eric Holder stood up for the people.  It’s the same deal here in Australia; in fact we expect the Attorney General to bulldoze into Parliament a lot of anti-people laws!

I am not saying it’s right. I just don’t know the job description.

Now here be an offer, Madam. I am willing to help you with such matters, without pay. I have worked long and hard on these things. I can also expand on two things about which I wrote to the governor of Massachusetts last week.

One is the ability to use RICO law, federally, to get at the racketeers known as CIA or FBI. It would be snap to do this. The other is to petition the US District court in Boston for a writ of error coram nobis.  As this ancient writ is not taught in law schools you may not even have heard of it.

California Judge Marilyn Patel used it successfully in 1984 to set aide the conviction of Fred Korematsu. I am sure you are following the current case Hedges v Obama that seeks a ruling by SCOTUS that would obsolete Korematsu. We don’t need that, however, to get the conviction of Jahar Tsarnaev set aside.

Jahar’s conviction needs urgently to be set aside on the grounds of fraud-upon-the-court. My book, Fraud Upon the Court, has just been published. I am sure I understand this procedure. It is just one of laws’ beautiful protections.

But if taking on the feds is too daunting as a first step, you cam just recall Jahar from federal prison to a state prison in a trice. Quite apart from any of the particulars of the case, the fact that Massachusetts is planning to try Jahar for a crime other than the crime of the Marathon bombing, no one, absolutely no one, could oppose your move to “habeas the corpus” so to speak. We in Massachusetts own Jahar. He is ours. Please bring him home.

In short, somebody, somewhere, has to prompt a great turn-around in our tragic and absurd situation. Ms Healey, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, let it be you.

Yours sincerely,

Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

Email address: mary.maxwell@ alumni.adelaide.edu.au

A different view of the Brothers: