Justice for George Hanna

On Feb. 26, 1983, Trooper George Hanna was gunned down in cold blood in Auburn by individuals who were planning a robbery of a local business. George Hanna got in their way, so they killed him.

I had the honor and privilege of working with George and got to know him well. He was great husband and father. He discharged his duties with fairness and justice, treating everyone he encountered with courtesy and respect.  He was the sort of person whom you wished all police officers would emulate.

Since the day he was murdered, some 45 years ago, his family and his friends have painfully wondered what life would have been like if he had lived. Today, in a clear manifestation of confused legal thinking, one of his killers actually faces the possibility of being released on parole.  This prospect is the consequence of a Supreme Judicial Court ruling which embraced a radical and questionable theory about brain development, advanced by many European countries, which holds that full brain development in human beings occurs much later than previously thought, thus casting doubts upon criminal culpability.

This theory completely rejects moral development as a legitimate element in administering justice. None of Hanna’s killers advanced any mental deficiency in their defense. They were rationale people. The deed they committed was vicious and horrendous. It was not a mistake of the head but an evil disposition in the heart that ended George Hanna’s life. Many of our justices appear to have forgotten that distinction.

The people of Massachusetts claim to value life. In their charity, they chose to reject capital punishment as a response to premeditated murder. George Hanna’s killers have received the dividend from their beneficence. His life had value as well, and because it was coldly and brutally taken from him, a loss that continues to torture his family to this very day, justice demands that those who took it remain in prison for the rest of their lives.

Dennis Galvin

Major, Retired

Mass State Police

Remembering Hanna

As someone who served over 28 years in law enforcement as a member of the Boston Metro DMH Area police department, I still remember when Trooper George L. Hanna was brutally murdered after he made a traffic stop (“The most heinous of crimes,” Boston Herald, Jan. 14).

Hanna was removing the occupants of the vehicle when one of them, Jose Colon, 20, shot Hanna six times at close range. The killer was sentenced to life without parole. However, this is Massachusetts and thanks to a Supreme Judicial Court decision, Commonwealth v. Mattis, which ruled “emerging adults” who were 18 to 20 at the time they killed could not be sentenced to life without parole.

So, Colon and others might get released while the victims get no paroles from death.

Thank you to Gov. Maura Healey for so strongly urging the Parole Board to deny parole for Trooper Hanna’s killer.

Sal Giarratani

Sergeant, retired

Boston Metro DMH Area Police Dept.