It is difficult to imagine Reilly outside of public life. Public service is in his blood, it is what he has been doing for virtually his entire career. Everything from serving at the Watertown Boys and Girls Club, to launching a criminal investigation into the Big Dig ceiling collapse. Reilly will leave behind many legacies in Massachusetts: the million-plus users of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare who kept their insurance, the $30 million he secured for charities when the Red Sox were sold, the unprecedented investigation into the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal just to name a few. But the real legacy he leaves behind is not his battles with big name institutions; it is with the families of the many victims he has achieved justice for.
I remember meeting a man whose sister, Janet Downing, had been brutally murdered at her Somerville home in 1995. Her neighbor, 15 year old Edward O’Brien stabbed her an astonishing 97 times. Reilly, the District Attorney of Middlesex County at the time, took the unusual step of prosecuting the case himself. But before doing so, he appealed all the way to the Supreme Judicial Court to allow O’Brien to be tried as an adult. He won with the SJC, and then secured a guilty verdict for O’Brien, resulting in a life sentence. When I met Downing’s brother, he told me that he and his family will never forget what Reilly did for them, and that there is always a place for him in their hearts. Reilly has left behind countless other such stories throughout his years of fighting for victims of crime.
Reilly’s candidacy for Governor, a job that he had once seemed such a clear favorite to win, went down in flames. After years of Republican governors and resentment at Romney’s neglect of our state, people were ready for change. Nobody represented that change more than Deval Patrick. But anyone who thinks of Reilly as part of the smoke-filled backroom establishment of the Massachusetts Democratic Party need only look to the ousting of Billy Bulger from his cushy and undeserved post as President of the University of Massachusetts. The ultimate insider, Bulger was ousted by Governor Romney in 2003, and only one Democrat came to his assistance while the establishment told him not to. It was Tom Reilly.
So, as a regular old citizen of the Commonwealth, I would simply like to thank one of the last true public servants this state may ever see, for all the tireless hours he put in trying to make our state a better place to live. It did not go unnoticed. And although he took a lot of ridicule for it, he was right that politics is not his strong suit. Fortunately for a lot of families in Massachusetts, fighting on behalf of victims is.
I’m not a decades-long citizen of MA, so my take on Reilly is a bit different. He really came to my attention when he had to deal with the legal questions around marriage. In this regard, he “achieved justice” for – who? Not me. His tepid (at best) consideration for the rights of all Bay Staters was a very sad revelation for me. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that his newfound (tepid) support for marriage was real. That is, until he and the Sec’y of State declined to investigate or even speak forcefully about the rampant signature fraud surrounding the anti-equality amendment.
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I realize that he is well liked for other aspects of his career, and I can see why based on what you say above. However, when his career intersected with my civil rights, I found him to be a sad disappointment.
as wrong as the 1913 laws may be, as AG it is his job to enforce the law, even if he personally disagrees with that law.
You just lauded him for ignoring the law with regard to trying a teen as an adult! Don’t you see the double standard here? And anyway, if he was compelled to enforce the 1913 laws (unlike the trial age laws, hmm…), he could have made a firm statement as to his immense displeasure at having to do so. He chose not to. He made dishwater statements about marriage equality along the lines of: how now that it was legal for MA gays to marry, it was legal for MA gays to marry. That is the extent he, a candidate for governor, was willing to lead on civil rights. He may have been hard working, but not for equality. THis is why I cannot be sad at his departure.
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Wow. Convincing the court to try a 15-year-old as an adult is definitely not something to be proud of. I had been feeling bad for Reilly until I read about that.
Trying him as a juvenile so he can be released when he’s 21? This wasn’t some kid who liked to kill bugs and maybe could have been saved before his violent streak got out of hand. He stabbed a perfectly innocent woman, a wife and mother, until she was barely recognizable as a human being. He got exactly what he deserved.
When the tireless advocates for the poor some call bar advocates, who represent those who are before the court, but cannot afford attorneys…had not received a raise in their rates for 30 years, and were not being paid for the work they had already done, Reilly was no friend to us at all. All the front line attorneys, whether assistant attorney generals, public defenders, or court-appointed private attorneys are very poorly paid. Did you know that an assistant attorney general [the folk who do the grunt work for “major” public servants like Reilly] are paid $35,000.00 a year? Many must work a second and third job to make ends meet. I sure never heard Reilly fight for justice for his own foot soldiers, either.
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I have heard he is hard working, and that is a good thing. But when it comes to upholding the 6th Amendment right to counsel, Reilly was missing in action and the 6th Amendment bar supported Deval Patrick, in large part.
his entire campaign for governor was based on helping regular working people, while Patrick was busy with useless slogans like “Together We Can” and sprinkling the word “Hope” everywhere.
Yeah! Down with civic empowerment and uplifting spirits! Let’s get rid of all that “hope” crap and bring on fear and cynicism and politics-as-usual!
The irony here is that if Reilly supporters spent their time actually working on Tom’s campaign at least as much as they have wasted time bitching about Deval Patrick, who knows…
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Actually, I do know. Reilly still would have lost and he had no one but himself and his ineffectual organization to blame for it.
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Tom Reilly showed his true democratic colors on primary night. I won’t miss him at all.
This is a very insulting post and I am personally offended.
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You have no basis to comment on the activity of Reilly supporters.
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I was a very active volunteer for Tom. Every time I volunteered I was joined by large numbers of diverse people. Whether it was at his campaign headquarters, his satellite volunteer offices, or out in the field it was always a large crowd working hard making phone calls, stuffing envelopes or doing anything to help elect Tom.
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People of every demographic helped on his campaign. Students, union members, young professionals, soccer moms, democrats, independents, and yes republicans. This is why I love Tom Reilly, his ability to attract so many different people under one cause.
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I want to tell you that life exists outside the safe confines of the internet and just because we were not blogging does not mean we were not there.
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I have to ask you, where were deval’s supporters outside the last debate in Cambridge? Were they there to show support? No, but they existed right?
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I personally do not like Deval Patrick, I hope he does a good job but I think he is an arrogant self-righteous elite. Does this matter? No, not until the next election. What matters is I am willing to concede that he proved to be a very good candidate, but I refuse to admit that a) he will be a better governor than Reilly could have been or b) that his volunteer support was any more effective or worked any harder than Tom’s. Sure you guys must have worked hard, everyone worked hard–including the supporters of gabs/mihos/healey/ross.
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To say that people who donated large quantities of their time and effort were not “actually working” is tremendously insulting.
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Now I know you are going to say if we were working so hard why did we not blog? Well first of all blogging is not everything, secondly there were Reilly supporters who contributed to forums like this and others in a constructive manner and did not “bitch about deval.” Others may not have had the time. Tell a corrections officer that after working in a jail all day that going after work to a rally or to make phone calls was not enough and they should go spend some time on the internet instead of with their kids. Tell a mother, or a father, or a friend that there contributions were too few and they should have spent a few more hours posting on the internet. If you can do that then I guess you and I are at an impasse.
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Despite all of our hard work we got killed in the election. Yes I know what happened, 23% was not a good performance, but that does not make my contribution or the contribution of hundreds of other volunteers any less meaningful. I am proud to have worked for Tom and if I had to do it over again, even if I knew how it would end, I still would have worked for Tom because he stood for something that no other candidate including Saint Deval could claim. He stood for the families of Massachusetts who are struggling to survive; he not only had the policy initiatives to make their lives better, but he made a career out of helping those who could not help themselves. Every other candidate in the race made a career out of cashing in with the nearest big business or influential law firm.
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Where you got from my post that I was talking about blogging is beyond me. Admittedly blogging had its place in this election, but it was no substitute for the real work of talking with people on a one-on-one basis.
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Since you asked, I’d be happy to tell you where Deval supporters were during the last debate — they were knocking on doors and working the phones getting ID’s to ensure our win on election day. Standouts are all well and good, but they don’t ID voters. If you don’t have your IDs you’re not going to win. We had our IDs.
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That is not to say that there weren’t any supporters working hard for Tom Reilly. I’m sure there were. I just didn’t see any in my area. I was the senate district coordinator for Worcester and Middlesex and I know how many people (and elected officials) in the various town and city committees were with each candidate. If you looked at the straight numbers, you’d think that Reilly and Gabrieli both would have done much better than Deval in this district, but it wasn’t the case because having the numbers only counts if people DO THE WORK. Reilly and Gabrieli did not do the work.
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We DID THE WORK.
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So you can be insulted all you want, but let me tell you it doesn’t change the fact that we worked harder then you folks did. Plain and simple. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear, but it’s the honest truth. The result bear that out and this Commonwealth will be better off for it.
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Saint Deval? Are you sour grapes folks really still doing that? Why is it that to build your guy up, you have to tear our Governor down?
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Talk about a poor winner. Yeah you guys won. I think I got that when Tom only received 23%. Your comments are incredibly arrogant. To make sweeping statements without any conception of reality demonstrates the self-righteous attitude so many of us are sick of.
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I don’t care what position you held or how you organized for deval, you could have been Deval’s campaign manager and still have had no idea what type of contribution the individual volunteers for any other campaign made and what sacrifices they made. To be honest Deval got a seat at the table because of his grassroots organization…good job to you (not being sarcastic here I mean it), but that’s not why he won. He won because all across the nation a desire for change was growing (the house, the senate) and here in Massachusetts we already have liberal senators and congressman. In this state it was deval who positioned himself as the representative of change and that’s why people voted for him. While I am sure the work of you and all the other vols was beneficial, it was not the sole reason for his election, nor was it the reason for Tom’s defeat.
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To claim deval won because his volunteers worked harder is not only impossible to prove but it also leaves out major components of why he won and marginalizes the extremely hard work and dedication of thousands of other politically active and concerned individuals who thought the state needed help. Just because people did not choose to work for deval does not mean they were any less inspired or worked any less than their counterparts on deval’s campaign.
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Even though I hope (yes I have hope even though I didn’t support Patrick) OUR Governor does a good job, its people like you that make me glad I did not work for Deval.
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Lets get this clear, this thread was started by someone who wanted to give a nice tribute to a faithful public servant and instead of showing a little bit of class and giving respect to a man who served the state and you for 30 years, people found it necessary to voice their opinion on what they believe to be his faults. The man is leaving office today. Let’s let it go. As of 12pm he will no longer be a public servant. There is no need to attack him or any of his supporters who not only worked hard for him throughout the years but thought it would be nice to remember all he has done to help the citizens of the state, including you.
There was no organizing for Reilly in my town, for delegates, on the ground [as they say] – nothing to do with the internet – even though my town gets 40 delegates. No one was holding coffees. No one was calling Town Dem Committee Members tom pitch us for Reilly. No one had a slate or any posters for Reilly at the caucus. Why? Weren’t we even worth bothering with? I saw no one the ground support where in the town where I live – but even though the Deval slate took all 40 slots [and one of those was me] it did not have to be that way.
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This felt to me like “he quit before he started” or “he doesn’t care about us at all” back when I was deciding who to support.
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Further, he did not support the bar advocates when we went five months without being paid, and would not support us and adjusting compensation for inflation when the issue was studied by a Commission. He did not reach out to hard working, small firm, solo attorneys at all – at least that was my experience. Only the prosecutorial community….and there is life and democracy in defense work, too.
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Healy attacked the defense bar. Reilly just spurned it.
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My .02
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Deb AmberPaw@aol.com
You mean with the concession speech where he congratulated and applauded Patrick on his win? Yeah, that was really disgraceful.
my above comment is in reference to Susan M.’s comment about Tom on Primary Night.
Apparently the useless slogans were part of winning.
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In the real world of government, helping regular working people mostly consists of enacting a progressive agenda which mostly requires electing progressive Democrats. That last part we haven’t gotten down lately. When we win — especially after losing for the last 16 years, we might want to take note of why we won. It might be because sprinkling hope is part of a useful formula.
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Aside from the fact, that Deval Patrick is sincerely hopeful.
tom reilly was one of those “front line attorneys” working in the Middlesex DA’s office as a prosecutor and in the AG’s office as a civil rights attorney. One of his strengths as AG was he understood what it meant to be a grunt.
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To imply that Tom was a hot shot millionaire who didn’t care about the little guy would be a gross lack of understanding. Tom was and still is the little guy. Remember he rents in Watertown, he needs his state salary unlike romney/healey/deval.
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He has made a career out of fighting for the little guy.
First, I was mostly just surprised in your well-written tribute to Reilly’s legacy that you would have included such a controversial action: you notably didn’t include his controversial actions on equal marriage rights, and that’s fine. In my opinion, the idea of selective treatment of people based on emotional concerns is clearly unprofessional, and is what gives prosecutors a bad name. Now personally, I’m opposed to life in prison in general, as if prison is supposed to be rehabilitative, life in prison is fundamentally counterproductive. But that’s not really the issue: the issue is we have a different legal status and standard for minors under 18, and selectively “trying as an adult” because of the nature of the crime accused is a ridiculous distortion of justice. Of course, there should be different standards for teenagers than children, but not the same as adults. Now, why does being tried as a juvenile automatically mean release at 21? I think an effective punishment for a teenager convicted such a crime would be around 10 years, with the possibility of parole at 5 years if rehabilitated and having completed a college degree. But the point is, there has to be a legitimate judicial process, and it is disgusting that so often the rules are changed at the whim of the prosecutor and the consent of the judiciary, just to “make a point” or other such discriminatory excuses. I do appreciate Tom Reilly’s long dedication to public service, but I don’t believe he was right in the way he carried that out at many times.
anyone who stabs another person 97 times deserves to be punished without consideration for age. By the time someone is 15, they should know that stabbing people is wrong. Reilly did exactly the right thing on this and it is absolutely idiotic to think he was wrong here.
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This type of ultra-sensitive forgiveness is why us liberals are perceived to be soft on crime and similar issues like national defense.
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If a 15 year old came into my house and stabbed someone in my family 97 times (yes folks 97 times) I would want that kid punished as severely as possible and if someone were to tell me “sorry but he’s a minor, he’ll be free in a couple years” that would infuriate me almost as much as people who think letting murders walk free is a good thing.
Before I lost my hazmat suit at the cleaners, I used to read Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. I marvelled at his ability to work himself up to high degree of Moral Indignation. He was just a virtuoso at feeling Morally Indignant. Not only that, but he thought that his Indignation was some kind of moral compass, as opposed to a hypersensitivity or a neurosis.
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Now of course, 97 stabs makes anyone feel morally indignant. Politically, that makes it harder to be reasonable about this.
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Still, that’s no excuse for taking out our Jeff Jacoby Moral Compass, hiring the horses, afixing the ropes, and drawing and quartering the guy — just because we feel extra indignant.
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The reason we do not try juveniles the same way as adults has nothing to do with a romantic view of how innocent minors are. My understanding is that the reason for such laws is that minors are developmentally not able to do the kind of moral reasoning that adults do. Developmental psychologists point out that the emotional style of decision making to which teens are annoyingly given is not overcome until the early twenties in most humans in our species. Sure, they can begin to do it, but they don’t have all the working parts yet.
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Six year olds can count, too, but they make poor cashiers.
by that logic would you suggest we wait until people are 25 to try them as adults? I hope not.
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While I understand children are still developing in their mid teens, the 3 year difference between a 15 year old and an 18 year old is not enough in my opinion to make trying him as an adult illigitimate.
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Are you ok with letting this kid/brutal murderer walk after a few years?
I’m not a developmental psychologist nor have I thought through the justice and legal issues. I’m just saying we should do and advocate what’s right and that indignation is a poor moral compass.
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And no, I don’t think it would be safe to have this kid “walk” after a few years.
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Would you be satisfied with the vat of acid, or will the usual boiling oil be sufficient?
in North Adams…then to Boston for an evening reception.
My family were tireless Reilly supporters, he was a very personable and nice man, my mother worked at Watertown High and knew some of his kids, he’d come into the East Cambridge Hyde/Saucony shoe store regularly back when my brother worked there, and all of us in Cambridge wont forget his tireless efforts during the Curley case to keep our communities safe. All of this wont be forgotten, and frankly had Tom not taken the nomination for granted and ran on his record with real ideas instead of running an inept campaign that barely mentioned the things he did I’m sure he would have done a lot better.
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Don’t get me wrong I was a Deval supporter from the beginning and the way Tom carried himself during the debates was abysmal, but lets not trash his years of service simply because he ran a nasty campaign, this doesn’t undo the 8 years of service to the Commonwealth, nor the 16 years of service to Middlesex County.
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No Elliot Spitzer but no Billy Bulger either.
Despite being put off by his negative campaign and his odd stance on equal marriage, I have a lot of respect for Tom Reilly. I supported Patrick, but I told a lot of people that we in Massachusetts would be lucky to have a governor as good as he would have been. I believe that are few states with better governors. He was an admirable Attorney General. I wish there was a place for him in state government.
Here is an email that I sent to our Wayland Democratic Town Committee eGroup in December, 2005:
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I should preface this by stating that my enthusiastic support for Deval Patrick is not simply based on dislike of Tom Reilly. Deval Patrick is a strong liberal candidate. He is a charismatic and effective campaigner. He is building an outstanding grass roots organization, which looks to be the best since Mike Dukakis.
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Tom Reilly, then the District Attorney of Middlesex County, rose to prominence at a time when Massachusetts very nearly reinstated the death penalty. He was then and remains now a promoter of this barbaric practice. This was also a time when our state was adopting the ugly practice of trying children in adult courts. Reilly was a chief supporter of this as well, going so far as to personally prosecute a case involving a fifteen year old murderer.
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Here is what I wrote at the time:
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“The statements that Reilly made to the press before and during that trial were outrageous, unfounded, and politically inspired – immediately afterwards he announced his candidacy for Attorney General. Specifically Reilly stated that Edward O’Brien (the accused teenager) could not be rehabilitated and would become a serial killer if allowed to go free. Reilly is totally unqualified to make such judgments.
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“I do not know if Edward O’Brien could be rehabilitated. Neither does anyone else. But Reilly does not care about rehabilitation. His statements appeal to the dark and vengeful side of our nature. He hopes to use this appeal, along with Nixonesque attacks on his opponent (Lois Pines) as “soft on crime,” to get elected.
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“A civilized society does not imprison a child, for life and with no chance of parole, for an act committed at the age of 15, however horrendous the crime may be. Our mean-spirited attitude toward juvenile offenders explains why the United States is virtually the only country to not ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for enlightened juvenile courts.”
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Possibly Reilly has reinvented himself since (kind of like the “New Nixon”), and it’s great that he took on Micro$oft, but I do not see much sign of his having changed his views on criminal justice matters. These views, IMHO, are anathema to anyone who considers himself or herself liberal.
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Four years ago, the Democrats nominated the insiders’ favorite for Governor. She promptly self-destructed in the final election. Hopefully we will not make that mistake again.
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– Michael Bate
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P.S.
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Unfortunately Reilly was successful in defeating Lois Pines, who would have made a great Attorney General.
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During the recent debates in the Gubernatorial primary, Reilly accused Patrick as being “soft on crime” regarding CORI records, on which Patrick took the correct position.
Thank you. I vaguely remembered that.
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I forgot that Reilly has taken “vigorous” and turned it into “mean-spirited”.
The root of your disaproval is that the defendent was 3 years under 18. Had he committed the crime 3 years later I don’t think this would be an issue. I could be wrong, I don’t want to put words in anyones mouth, but lets just go with that for a second.
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Is 3 years enough to compensate for the extreme violence of the crime? I argue that it is not.
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I consider myself a liberal or progressive or whatever the hell you want to call it. I understand that there areproblems with trying children as adults. I understand why people are opposed to it. Traditionally I would be opposed to it as well. But in this case i believe it was the right thing to do. The extreme violence of the case demanded harsh action. Justice is blind after all.
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I believe accomadations need to be made for children and to remember that they are not adults. It is important though not to look at this kid as a victim; he is a murderer.
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Think back to when you were 15, I would argue that by the time you were 15 you were capable enough to understand the evil behind stabbing someone so many times.
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Would I argue that all child criminals should be tried as adults? No. Why? Because not all child criminals are brutal murderers.
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I don’t think this is a slippery slope either because, while this case was shocking it is far from the norm. I doubt this happens too often. Only in cases of an extreme nature were there was clearly a large degree of hatred should children be tried as adults. Unfortunately this was one example.
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I say I favor trying children as adults, and I say I do not favor that approach because conditions of individual cases determine my opinion.
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The letter of the law should apply to everyone regardless of age. Tom saw a criminal who killed a woman in cold blood and sent the criminal to jail. There is no question about his guilt. I have no problems locking up these kind of people.
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as for your comment that Tom was an insider re-read the original post in this thread
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The legacy of Tom Reilly will become more apparent as we move farther away from the 2006 election cycle and we gain a broader perspective on his career.
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Tom was a tireless advocate for the people of Massachusetts. If there is one thing we can say about Tom it is that he gave a damn. He had genuine care for those who needed help. He was at his best when he could give comfort to victims and seek justice on their behalf. Volunteering on his campaign I had the pleasure of interacting with him on a few occasions, and I consider it an honor to be given that privilege. He and I were obviously not close personal friends but through my observations I saw that when an opportunity arose where he could help someone, no matter who they were, he took that opportunity.
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He committed the same level of hard work and dedication when he was fighting for individuals as when he was fighting for millions. If you have Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare you owe it Tom. Tom made sure not a single person was denied care, he made sure everyone got there medicine. If not for Tom we could be in a very different place right now. This is just one example. Throughout his entire career from the very beginning he fought for civil rights, a cleaner environment, consumer rights and for the everyday citizen of Massachusetts. He demonstrated holding office for him was not about the prestige or recognition when even after losing a hard fought race he continued to diligently work to earn justice for the people of Massachusetts starting a case against Big Dig contractors and bringing the environmental concerns of the state all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
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If I were to put music to a highlight reel of Tom’s career I would use “One” by U2…”we got to carry each other.” Tom carried us all and we all owe him our deepest appreciation.
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One of Tom’s favorite expressions is “it’s a story that had to be told,” that certain truths need to be brought into the public eye. I hope that people think his story is one that has to be told, I certainly do.
…or his protege Martha Coakley, for that matter, because of their never-ending and absurd persecution of the Amiraults. Those cases were travesties of justice, and the Massachusetts criminal “justice” system should be embarrassed.
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Of course, Reilly would never be embarrassed by that. He made his name off those cases.
I thought that the Amirault/Fells Acre prosecution was Harshbarger, not Reilly, no?
…but Reilly was complicit, at least in that he continued it.
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As far as I’m concerned, all of them are complicit in this travesty of justice.
I feel this is getting lost in the thread and I don’t mean to sound repeptitive but let me ask everyone a question.
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Do you or someone you know have Harvard Pilgrim Health Coverage?
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If you answered yes, you/ your friend still has coverage because of Tom.
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……perhaps you could say “They continue to have Harvard Pilgrim coverage” b/c of Tom Reilly.
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However, if there was no Harvard Pilgrim, pretty much all those people would be now covered by Blue Cross, Harvard Vanguard, Tufts, etc. So they don’t owe “coverage” to Tom. They owe coverage to their employers (and increasingly: themselves) who pay the premiums.
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As to your larger point, I met Reilly only once and for just 30 minutes talking 1 on 1. But from that minimal impression, I was very favorably disposed — he seemed to personify “good guy.” So props to you for your work on his behalf.
yes that would of been better, and thats what i meant.
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Thanks and I’m glad you found Tom likeable.
Do we have to re-fight the 2006 primary every time someone brings up one of the other candidates?
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Let’s not kick a guy on his last day. Let him ride out into the sunset with a little dignity.
First of all the “brother” of Janet Downing is no saint and was totally out of her life until he found himself in the glare of the TV cameras. Just ask his wife and kids what type of person he is. Their family history is astonishing.
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p>Second of all, O’Brien would have received a sentence of 20 years if convicted as a juvenile. Get your facts straight.
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p>Third, Reilly used this case to launch his campaign for Attorney General. He lied, fabricated stories and just railroaded this kid straight to Walpole. Using his pet reporters who would print any venom that came out of his arse they printed so many lies about this kid it was ridiculous. The jury pool was tainted from day one.
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