Legislators clean up warrant backlog in Massachusetts.

• Position: On First Reading - Warrants compared with drivers' licenses and other state lists - Brief Article

In Massachusetts, Charles Jaynes murdered Jeffrey Curley in October 1997. At the time, Jaynes was wanted on 75 outstanding warrants. In another case, Eddie Morales allegedly shot and killed police officer John DiNapoli in December 1999. Morales had three outstanding warrants.

"Too frequently," notes Senator Cheryl Jacques, sponsor of the Warrant Reform Act of 2000, "when we hear of horrendous crimes, we learn that the perpetrator was already wanted on one or more outstanding warrants."

She and Representatives Peter Koutoujian and Reed Hillman, House co-sponsors, set about righting that particular oversight last year. And through the work of the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee, they found a backlog of more than 300,000 outstanding arrest warrants--even though Massachusetts was the first state in the nation to create a statewide, electronic arrest warrant database. Jacques' committee also found that the warrant backlog was growing at a rate of 5,000 a month or about 60,000...