Certain government documents on the James “Whitey” Bulger trial previously sealed from the public will be unlocked in two weeks after a federal judge lifted a protective order Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler lifted a protective order on government documents related to the Bulger case, rendering them available to the
public.
The protective order the prosecution filed in 2011 limited the defense to discuss thousands of documents to anyone other than Bulger’s attorneys and potential witnesses.
“We feel the time has come to be transparent about these documents to allow us to show people what are in these documents and how it relates to our defense,” said one of Bulger’s attorneys, J.W. Carney Jr., outside the U.S. District Court.
Carney said he and his team are unable to discuss case strategy with other attorneys because they would have to refer to the material under the protective order.
Bowler said she wrote a 40-page ruling on the protective order that will be issued later on Tuesday.
Bowler said while medical records and autopsy reports will remain under the protective order, all other documents will be available to the public unless the government requests specific documents to be sealed.
Such documents will have to go through a case-by-case revision that Bowler herself will administer.
“That process will not impede on the progress of the discovery,” Bowler said at the end of her ruling.
Bowler said she expects to see the case move forward toward the March 4 trial date.
Carney said the defense would now be able to talk to relatives, friends and focus groups to help build the case.
“These steps are taken by every competent lawyer in preparing for a trial,” Carney said. “We’ve been unable to do so, but now with Judge Bowler’s order, we expect we will be able to have those discussions.”
Bowler gave the prosecution two weeks to identify the documents that should remain under the protective order and ordered a status hearing on August 6, when the parties will reconvene.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns denied the defense’s allegations about his impartiality on the Bulger case on the same day and refused to recluse himself from the trial.
Stearns denied the defense’s request in a ruling filed on Tuesday, arguing that it would “institutionally irresponsible” for him to remove himself from the case because the defense made false accusations about his partiality.
He also suggested the defense was attempting to divert and delay the trial.
Carney said after the hearing that because Stearns was a top federal prosecutor during the time that Bulger was allegedly committing crimes, he is too impartial to preside over the trial.
“It’s clear that most persons in law enforcement in the 1980s believed that my client, Mr. Bulger, was responsible for a wave of serious crimes,” Carney said. “We asserted that it was improper for the person who headed the criminal bureau for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for most of the 1980s to preside over this trial.”
Carney said he does not know at this time if he will appeal the decision to a higher court. However, prosecutors have two weeks to determine which documents they still want kept under the protective order.
“I’ve spent 34 years trying to upset judges by asking them to follow the law and I’m not going to stop now,” Carney said.
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