EB3 will have to read more than just the Phoenix adult personals this week — David Bernstein assembles a hard-hitting piece on Boston D.A. Dan Conley.
But District Attorney (DA) Dan Conley is a rare phenomenon: a Boston pol who is seemingly inculpable. That?s especially striking, given that he?s served as the city?s top elected law-enforcement official during a depressing regression into high homicide rates, widespread fear of violence, dismal arrest rates, and high-profile acquittals.
Even a Boston Globe article this month that examined a continuing lack of convictions in Boston murder cases, pointed fingers at jurors, television shows, court delays ? everywhere except the prosecutor?s office.
Worth reading.
EB3’s been pretty serious about criticizing Conley. And this is hardhitting piece by Bernstein, with plenty of anonymous quotes badmouthing Conley. But the sections about Conley publicly, emptily threatening to go after 4 jurors in the Person trial seems to indicate poor judgment on the man’s part.
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And his drastically low numbers for prosecuting people who kill black males vs. people who kill other victims can’t be some innocent statistical blip. It’s an unacceptable failure, and that failure deserves to get more attention from the press.
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I’m thinking EB3’s right about this.
“I’m thinking EB3’s right about this.”
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You mean you haven’t been 100% with me on this since the git-go?
together?
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Think about it.
schlemeil = poor dopey slob – stupd
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schlmazel = always having bad luck, don’t bet the horse is bet.
Shlemeil = putz who spills his soup
shlemazel= putz who shlemeil spills his soup on
Shlemeil: Fer
Shelmazel: Fee
If Suffolk County DA Dan Conley does not have the financial or human resources, managerial skills and competence, or intelligence to investigate and prosecute successfully the plethora of homicides in Boston over the last year, AG Martha Coakley and United States Attorney Michael Sullivan should step into the step into this breach and appoint homicide investigators from the State Police, the FBI, ATF, and designate special Assistant Attorney Generals and Assistant U.S. Attorneys to investigate and prosecute these unsolved homicides in Massachusetts.
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Attorney General Coakley and the state Secretary of Public Safety, Kevin Burke, could start by re-assigning to the Homicide Division of Boston Police, the scores of radar-gun toting armed Department of Revenue agents masquerading as state troopers on our state’s highways and byways. In addition, Martha Coakley could re-assign, at least, one of her Assistant Attorney Generals from the trying responsibility of appearing on television with the consumer reporters of Channels 4, 5, 25, and 7 to warn Massachusetts residents about the mortal dangers posed pool toys, odorless and colorless radon in our homes, unscrupulous used car salesmen (shocking, I know), and incompetent and larcenous home contractors.
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I don’t exempt U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan from responsiblity in stepping up to provide supplemental law enforcement and prosecutorial resources to reduce the epidemic of murderous violence plaguing Boston. Mr. Sullivan and the FBI should stop wasting human and financial resources on playing the fruitless “Where in the World is Whitey Bulger?” game and assign more FBI agents, ATF agents, and U.S. Attorneys to prosecuting the criminal gangs responsible for many of these murders. Successive criminal RICO conspiracy and federal murder prosecutions that carry possible death penalty punishments have been successful in other cities in interrupting the ability of these well-organized urban criminal gangs to transform urban communities into war zones. Evidently, Dan Conley needs signficant assistance in investigating and prosecuting many of these unsolved homicides in Suffolk County. AG Coakley, the Secretary of Public Safety Burke, and U.S. Attorney Sullivan have the legal authority and human and financial resources to assist Mr. Conley in performing his investigatory and prosecutorial functions successfully to maintain a reasonable level of public safety on the streets of Boston and Suffolk County. With an arrest and successful prosecution record among the lowest in the nation and the continued spate of murders showing no sign of abating in Boston, concerned citizens of the city, Suffolk County, and Massachusetts should demand that Mr. Conley and his state and federal criminal justice colleagues begin to pool their resources, knowledge, and experience to stem the urban bloodbath produced by these unpunished urban killers.
i would like to see coakley and sullivan step up, but i’m also a process guy — is the role of the state and the feds to step in when a city is doing the job poorly but not illegally?
Yes, it is the role of the state and feds to use their superior human, financial, forensic, and technological resources to assist a local DA and police department which are clearly overwhelmed and not up to the job of restoring public safety to the streets where its citizens live.
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The urban culture of “Stop Snitching” is a very real problem that local DAs and police face when encountering murderous gang violence. Federal witness protection and relocation programs and criminal RICO laws that allow prosecutors to seize the homes and other assets of these gang leaders and their families can be very effective legal instruments in winning cooperation from reluctant witnesses and minor gang players.
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In addition, the Boston Police Department appears to be demoralized by the incompetence and failures of the Suffold County DA’s office to obtain indictments and win convictions in a number of high-profile murder cases. If the city’s homicide investigators have lost confidence in the county DA and his prosecutors, then assigning some special state and federal homicide investigators and prosecutors to collaborate with the local homicide investigators, represents, at least, a short-term fix of a local criminal justice system that has lost the confidence of the local community.
OK, so it’s pretty clear Dan Conley is not going to have many buildings named after him. Actually, check that. If he stays DA for another 20 years, which is possible, then maybe the new Suffolk DA’s office would be named for him.
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But here’s the real problem: DA’s, like teachers, don’t get paid enough.
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Check this out: starting salary for a law school grad at a big, downtown Boston firm: $160,000. Yes, you read that right. A kid who is 26 and has only ever held summer and/or part-time jobs will make more than the Governor. If S/He sticks around for just one year, that salary will go to $170,000, plus around a 10K bonus. The scale then goes: 185, 210, 230, 250, plus, say 30K bonus each year. So, at age 31, this kid’s making $280 in total comp.
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Compare that to DA’s: starting salary is $36K in Suffolk County. Conley makes $117,499. There’s a bunch of men listed on that Herald site, who must be division chairs, who make $82K.
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So, even if you’re the most bleeding heart government fan, or a person who believes everyone arrested is guilty, and you’re a first year law student trying to figure out whether you want to go public or private, and you know you’ll have $120K in debt when you graduate and you know taking a government job even with loan forgiveness programs your law school offers is not going to lighten the load too much, what do you do?
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And what if you’re a big firm litigator who really wants to get some trial experience and you want to go to the DA’s office for a while? Why would you?
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I know money isn’t the root of everyone’s decision making, but with discrepancies like these getting wider and wider and the cost of living around here getting higher and higher, won’t most people choose to try to work at a big firm?
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2. the reality is not every ADA candidate is also offered a job at Mintz. in any case, the ADA gets to try cases (exciting), works in crime (not bond law or other corp boringness), and sets up future political career if desired.
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3. $ always matters to at least SOME extent, i agree, but many ADAs are going up against low-paid public defenders. increase salaries to both and you’ll net no real difference in outcome — better prosecution, better defense.
The Assistant District Attorney problems will not go away by throwing money in that direction. I think we’ve seen that with the judges. There is a culture there that has to be dealt with. The “good ol’ boy/girl”, the sloppiness, the lack of professional conduct all cry for change, but the powers that run the organizations save all the “leadership” talk for political rally.
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Too, the DAs are safe from public scrutiny. The last time I read of a scandal was almost 40 years ago when the Norfolk DA was getting kickbacks from his ADAs. The Boston Globe had a “Spotlight” report back then. It caused a shakeup. The Globe wasn’t always the sad paper it is now. Can’t picture that happening today.