Timeline of events:
- Dean Tran of Fitchburg is elected to the state senate in 2017.
- In 2019 the senate president receives an anonymous tip that Tran is using his publicly-paid staff members for political campaigning and fundraising.
- The senate’s ethics committee investigates and reports to the matter to the Office of Campaign Finance.
- That office then reports the matter to the attorney general.
- The attorney general takes the case to a grand jury in Worcester Superior Court.
- The grand jury indicts Tran on two counts of “using his official position to secure unwarranted privileges.”
- Tran files a motion to dismiss the case claiming that his actions while a legislator are immune from prosecution under Article 21 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rigthts.
- A superior court judge denies Tran’s motion to dismiss.
- Tran appeals the judge’s decision to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC).
Today the SJC issued a slip opinion which holds that former state senator Dean Tran cannot use the “legislative immunity” clause in Article 21 to avoid criminal prosecution in Worcester County.
The applicable part of Articel 21 reads as follows:
[t]he freedom of deliberation, speech and debate, in either house of the legislature, is so essential to the rights of the people, that it cannot be the foundation of any accusation or prosecution, action or complaint, in any other court or place whatsoever.
Tran contends that this section of the state’s Declaration of Rights gave him an absolute privilege to direct his publicly-paid staffers however he wished while in office.
This, presumably, would include the alleged use of staff members to assist in re-election activities and campaign fundraising.
The SJC disagreed with Tran’s interpretation of Article 21.
In today’s opinion, the justices write,
The conduct described in the indictments clearly does not rest on, or in any way implicate, the defendant’s duties as a legislator. The defendant does not assert, for example, that the conduct he is alleged to have engaged in took place on the floor, or in committee, or in connection with legislation, or in connection with a matter under deliberation by the Senate. Indeed, there is no contention whatsoever — let alone showing — that the indictments rest on any activity or speech connected with the business of the Senate. Instead, the indictments are based on alleged campaign activities, which are political rather than legislative in nature.
Accordingly, the SJC affirmed the trial judge’s decision to deny Trans motion and the crimincal case against Tran will proceed in superior court.
The full text of the SJC’s opinion is attached.