The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 17

11.9m to spend State tax officials say Boston has $11.9 million left from last year's budget. Page 20. Also IujiliJe MetroRegion nerws 17-23, 34, THE BOSTON GLOBE WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1990 ifflHtoftftiWMti Time warp in the law Dukakis: State should interveni for fair oil price! By Larry Tye GLOBE STAFF That was one of several conflicts discussed during yesterday's hearing, which was intended to determine why heating oil prices rose from an average of 90 cents a gallon in October to $1.51 a gallon on Jan. 2, and how price surges can be prevented. Everyone agreed that last month's troubles started with December's frigid temperatures, which in Boston Bet an all-time low for the month, and across Europe and the Soviet Union, which required that oil be diverted from US ports.

The situation was made worse because New England heating oil dealers had only partially filled their tanks, expecting weather as warm as last winter's. There also was agreement that the price hikes were devastating for the public. Bay State consumers paid $4 million more a day for heating oil last month than during December 1988. Across the Northeast, higher FUEL, Page 23 Gov. Dukakis yesterday said state intervention is needed to prevent a repeat of last month's record surge in heating oil prices, but energy executives insisted such price hikes are so rare that the government should leave the free market alone.

"The government was in the market years ago, and it screwed it up royally," said Jeffry Raynes, president of a group that represents Massachusetts heating oil dealers. He was one of several oil officials' testifying yesterday during an inquiry into the price jump by the Legislature's Joint Committee on Energy. Dukakis, however, said the rising price of oil, along with the Campeau Corp. bankruptcy, could cause "our friends in Eastern Europe to reconsider their new affection for market economies." FOR THE PAST YEAR AND A half, since her son was stabbed to death, Josephine Johnson has waited for justice. She went to the crime scene to envision what happened.

She tracked tips from kids who told her the juvenile killer had fled the state with relatives. She called the police constantly, so they wouldn't forget about a black boy who had died too soon on the Roxbury streets. She scribbled notes to herself in the back of her address book: "Autopsy report on Charles?" "What happens if a relative harbors a fugitive?" "How much time before killer becomes an adult?" That last question proved prescient. Today, a 17-year-old youth is on trial in Juvenile Court for the murder of Charles Johnson, who was 15 years old when his blood was spilled across a Roxbury alley. Dante Johnson no relation to the victim has admitted stabbing Charles Johnson over $2 worth of marijuana; he claims self-defense.

But even if Dante Johnson is convicted and sentenced today, he will be freed Saturday. Why? Simply because he turns 18. You see, in this state, youthful offenders are placed in the custody of the Department of Youth Services until age 18, when the agency's jurisdiction ends. However, if someone between the ages of 14 and 17 has committed a serious offense, the state can try him as an adult Now, murder is about as serious an offense as you get Dante Johnson is also charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon because he also stabbed Charles' friend, and with eluding the law for more than a year. Even though he found that Johnson "pre sents a significant danger to the public," Roxbury 1 Support weakening for tax plan BY MALONE GLOBE STAFF What's wrong with this picture? 'n-jjf District Court Judge Julian Houston decided not to have him tried as an adult.

"It is apparent that there is only a brief period remaining before his 18th birthday, at which time he must be re 4 i ternatives to the more objectionable -items in their tax plan, which is cen-, tered primarily on increasing and broadening the sales tax. House Speaker George Keverlan (D-Everett), who over the weekend; said he had sufficient votes to jwin passage of a tax package, yesterday said he was unsure of the status' of some of his members and would; have to poll his supporters again be-; fore deciding whether to introduce; BUDGET, Page 19- The House's fragile coalition behind a $1.1 billion annual tax plan began to fall apart late yesterday after a long and divisive Democratic caucus that left many representatives disappointed with their leadership's proposed solution to the state's $550 million deficit House leaders were scrambling last evening to caulk the leaking ship by polling members and seeking al globe photo lane turner HELPING HANDS Jamie Smith (right) and Becca Gray give each other mutual support as they learn to skate in Duxbury. Prosecutor says Luna seeks leverage By Doris Sue Wong GLOBE STAFF leased," Houston wrote. "Nevertheless, there is no clear and convincing evidence that this juvenile cannot be rehabilitated within the juvenile system." If the boy is convicted, how is the Department of Youth Services supposed to "rehabilitate" him in a day or two? Wave a magic wand and turn Dante Johnson, who killed at age 16, into a model human being? A couple of days of building birdhouses to relieve his aggression? Come, now. The decision makes the judge look foolish, the law look absurd.

Houston, by the way, is the same judge who refused to let 16-year-old Emmett Snow be tried as an adult after he fatally stabbed a 20-year-old. While on probation for that murder, Snow killed again. So much for "rehabilitation." Under the law, the state must prove that the accused is not treatable in the youth system, and Judge Houston felt that prosecutors had failed to do so. The law is frustrating to DYS Commissioner Edward Loughran, who has lobbied for a bill that would allow a judge in the case of a homicide to commit the youth to DYS until age 21. The bill passed the House and died in the Senate.

Loughran has resubmitted it "In the current law, time isn't a factor. It doesn't matter that the clock is running out," Loughran said. What's wrong with this picture? And why doesn't the Legislature do something about it? leged plot unravelled, Luna's alleged co-conspirators abandoned him, leaving him to bear the blame for the dismissal of the murder case against Albert Lewin and to become the focus of derision among his fellow officers, said Stern. The arguments came at the close of a four-day evidentiary hearing in Suffolk Superior Court on a renewed motion to dismiss the first-degree murder case against Lewin, 33. Judge John J.

Irwin is not expected to issue a ruling for several days. The judge LUNA, Page 22 Mundy, "and the only salvation, as he sees it is if he can get the attorney general's office to buy his allegations this involved higher-ups and to seize him as a witness." However, a defense lawyer for a Jamaican immigrant charged in Griffiths' death, said Luna has no reason to lie. The detective only mcriminated himself further by providing "darker and deeper" details about an alleged plot to withhold an informant being sought as a defense witness, said the lawyer, Max Stern. Stern said the detective instead had "a reason to let it all hang1 out" After the al A prosecutor argued yesterday that a suspended Boston police detective being investigated by a grand jury for possible perjury is trying to create a bargaining chip for himself by falsely accusing his superiors and a prosecutor of fostering misconduct in the 1988 murder case of his partner, Detective Sherman C. Griffiths.

Carlos A. Luna "has no hope at all in beating the perjury charge in trial," said Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Thomas GLOBE STAFF PHOTO WEND WAETM DETECTIVE CARLOS Prosecutor questions motive! 6 police foreesg Regardless of whether Dante Johnson is con- Drags to jail to AIDS victed, the problem with the law remains. join hunt for robber-rapist Infected inmate and family seek public awareness By Tom Coakley GLOBE STAFF zkS I The defendant is no dummy. He managed to elude the law for 15 months, then turned himself i in last October, three months before he would turn 18. He knew he'd "age out" of DYS in January.

The system worked, for him. The word on the street is that Dante is a hero. The kids think he's great because he hid out and beat the system. What a great message our lawmakers are sending young dirtballs. Today, Charles Johnson would have turned 17 years old.

Instead of buying a cake and making his favorite dinner, his mother, who is on leave from her cashier's job, will be in court for opening arguments in his murder case. "Why even, bother having a trial?" she asked. "He's going to walk right out that door, no matter what Hell turn 18, and hell be hugged by his mother. My son was a human being until that person killed him." Sometime today, when court is dismissed, Josephine Johnson will catch a train and bus out to Fairview Cemetery in Hyde Park to bring her boy the only present she can: a bunch of flowers for his grave. In the other Johnson household, a birthday this week will be cause for celebration, conviction or not NORWOOD Police detectives Boston and five area towns are looking, into whether the same man has three rapes and two sexual assaults while robbing stores in their communities 'since; Dec.

16. Investigators from at least five of the" communities will meet here today to compare reports, composite sketches, descriptions and other details of the crimes, which occurred in Boston, Braintree, Framingham, Dedham, Saugus and Norwood. The meeting comes as police continuing to share information have noticed similarities in the six crimes. The attacks include the daylight rape of two employees of a Framingham clothing store Dec. 27 and the rape of a tele-' phone store employee on Route 1 here last Friday.

"There's obvious said" Paul Bishop, Norwood police spokesman. 1 RAPES, Page 22 By Kay Longcope GLOBE STAFF FRAMINGHAM Before "Just Say No" became a slogan of the '80s, Tracy Army of Shrewsbury was hooked. Honked on pot Hooked on cocaine. Hooked on heroin. "I tried everything," she said in a recent interview at Framingham state prison, where she is incarcerated for the latest of a series of convictions for theft, larceny, drug possession and prostitution.

"When you get high, you think of nothing else. I didn't think about the long-term consequences." At 24, with a long life supposedly ahead of her, Tracy Army has AIDS. She was told in November 1987, while serving an earner sentence at GLOBE PHOTO OENNiS VANDAL GaO and Walter Army In their daughter Tracy's bedroom. The computer Is used to follow Tracy's treatment for AIDS at the state prison In Framingham. with a friend who had tested positive.

"I knew that in shooting drugs, you're bound to get it" said Tracy. "But when you're on drugs, that's your whole world The only way I was not ARMY, Page 22 Framingham, that she had tested positive for the HIV virus, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Her mother, Gail Army, a registered nurse, told Tracy she had probably been exposed when she shared needles.