Dear Editor,

Re: "What? No man to blame" (FF! March).

Wrong... Not a false alarm! Doe v. Roe, an impounded case from the Middlesex County Probate Court decided in December 1996 allowed expungement of the name of a lesbian attorney from the statewide domestic offender database (ref. Mass. Lawyers Weekly, 1/20/97). The lawyer’s partner ultimately admitted that she wasn’t really afraid despite a series of telephonic threats. Had this been a heterosexual relationship, this recantation would be textbook battered woman’s syndrome... i.e., underlying male manipulative conduct. Irrespectively, this was the first expungement to receive publicity, and the first accomplished by legal counsel, but not the first in the Commonwealth and not binding for the purposes of precedent.

In May 1996 the Clinton District Court allowed my pro se motion to expunge my name from the statewide domestic offender database. The Attorney General’s office representing the Department of Probation opposed my removal by filing a motion with the district court to reconsider and vacate the expungement order.

After a hearing where the AG’s office made an appearance and I was again pro se, the district court denied the Dept. of Probation’s motion. The Dept. of Probation then filed a notice of appeal in the appeal’s court. I then engaged attorney Paul Patten of Fall River (Frizado v. Frizado). The SJC granted our application for direct appellate review to be heard in early May (Vaccaro v. Vaccaro v. Department of Probation, SJC 07362).

Should we be successful, expungement should be allowed by a district court but more importantly a vacated ex parte 209A order should have no probative value by the courts, law enforcement, or any other agency in the Commonwealth. Consider the implications!

George H. Vaccaro

Harvard

Wrong again! In June, the SJC agreed with the probation department, and Mr. Vaccaro’s name is to remain on the abuse registry.