Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

Carcieri also vetoed a perennially controversial proposal to render inadmissible testimony in serious cases - where the penalty could be life imprisonment - unless the interrogation is tape-recorded.

Opposed by the state's law enforcement establishment, Carcieri said, the legislation taping is not always "feasible or practical since police contact...can start under hectic conditions, outside of a police station....important confessions in these settings could be suppressed.'' While the bill lays out some exceptions, such as circumstances where there was a machine malfunction or recording equipment was not "reasonably available,'' he said, the terms are "vague and ambiguous.''

"One can envision time-consuming evidentiary hearings to determine the meaning'' of these terms, he wrote.

The legislation was introduced in the Senate by Charles Levesque, D-Portsmouth, and in the House by Rep. Donna Walsh, D-Charlestown.

Carcieri vetoed the legislature's one significant effort to address the state's foreclosure crisis, by passing a bill to require that lenders give borrowers at least 75-days notice before commencing a foreclosure proceeding and advise them of the availability of free mortgage counseling services.

While "well-intentioned,'' Carcieri said, the legislation is the latest in a series of piecemeal actions by city and state officials to pass laws and ordinances "of dubious legality in an attempt to curtail the ability of lenders to foreclose on homes where borrowers have ceased making mortgage loan payments. Such ordinances may be popular, but could push some lenders out of the marketplace entirely.''

Carcieri also vetoed a bill to require the release from prison of anyone cleared of the alleged probation violation that sent him or her there.

Advocates of the bill sponsored by Sen. Rhoda Perry and Rep. David Segal, both of Providence, said it was meant to address a situation that had left "several inmates'' in state prison "for crimes of which they were not convicted, or of which they were found innocent at trial.''

"At face value,'' Carcieri said, "automatically terminating the incarceration of an individual who is charged with a subsequent offense, but is not prosecuted for the new allegation or is otherwise exonerated, would appear to serve the interests of justice,'' Carcieri said.

But he said this is not always the case because "of the lower standard of proof'' required to prove a violation of a prior sentence under which someone was allowed to remain free, on probation, and "violations of probation or a suspended sentence do not depend upon a new criminal charge.''

He said justice "would be thwarted buy a statutory requirement to mindlessly and automatically terminate incarceration.''

An opponent of gay marriage, Carcieri has not yet stated whether, he will sign, veto or allow to become law without his signature a bill to provide domestic partners with the right to make funeral arrangements for their partners.

The bill, also sponsored by Perry and Segal, would add "domestic partners'' to the list, in current law, of people who can legally make arrangements for a deceased person's funeral, cremation or burial to include domestic partners if the deceased person left no pre-arranged funeral contract.

The legislation defines a domestic partner as someone who was in an "exclusive, intimate and committed relationship" with the deceased and had lived with him or her for at least a year prior to the death; is at least 18, not married to anyone else, not related by blood and who was financially "interdependent'' with the deceased as evidenced, for example, by a joint mortgage, shared credit card or domestic partnership contract.

According to its sponsors, the legislation is designed to provide rights to domestic partners regardless of whether they are of the same or opposite sexes.