© 2023
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Hampden DA Testifies At Senate Hearing On Judicial Nomination

Hampden Cty District Attorney Mark Mastroianni
WAMC
/
Hampden Cty District Attorney Mark Mastroianni

A western Massachusetts prosecutor has taken a big step toward becoming a federal judge.

   Hampden County District Attorney Mark Mastroianni and two other judicial nominees were questioned for about 90 minutes Tuesday by members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Mastroianni answered questions about victim’s rights, drugs cases, and a controversial 2013 prosecution for violating the state’s gun storage law.

   " The Second Amendment is clear. Individuals do have rights to firearms and I recognize and respect that as clearly the law of the land. States have the authority to impose other regulations that affect the safety of their citizens."

   If confirmed by the full senate Mastroianni will become the U.S. District Court judge in Springfield.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.