As a prosecutor, I strongly believe that child abusers should go to prison, for long sentences. Child abusers, especially those who sexually molest children, are the offenders most difficult to treat and–if free to access the victims they prefer–are likely to molest additional children. The one way to be certain they won’t abuse a child again is to incarcerate them.
On the other hand, we all know persons who have faced and overcome substance abuse problems. I believe we incarcerate too many drug offenders. Many drug offenders commit drug offenses because they are users or addicts. We should not spend limited court resources trying to incarcerate them for drug offenses if they are appropriate candidates for probation, with frequent drug screens and treatment.
Above all, I believe the District Attorney should be an experienced prosecutor, not a politician. I am that experienced prosecutor, with a career including all levels of prosecution, responsible for prosecuting the most serious crimes–first-degree murder, aggravated rape, armed robbery, and drug trafficking–in the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court, supervising the Assistant District Attorneys in two different District Courts, and ten years experience in Superior Court investigating serious felonies, charging them in the Grand Jury, and taking them to trial.
As a candidate for elected office, I believe the District Attorney’s office should be held for limited terms, and should not be a stepping-stone for election to other offices. I will not serve for more than two terms as District Attorney, nor will I campaign for any other office while serving as District Attorney.
I’m also concerned about the effect of money on the office. There is no good reason for a District Attorney to raise large amounts of campaign cash while in office. As District Attorney, I will not solicit campaign donations unless I have an election opponent.
I hope this information is enough to interest you to look further into my candidacy. I’d be very honored for your support now, and your vote on September 14 in the Democratic primary.
Michael — I practice elder law in Norfolk County. One of the serious problems I see is the lack of resources devoted to elder abuse — not just physical abuse, which is a relatively simple thing to prove, but financial crimes that require far more resources to investigate and prove. The elder protective services agencies which service the county are finding it increasingly difficult to file protective cases in probate court because of the cost of outside counsel — and they can only file where they believe the person lacks capacity to consent to services.
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p>What do you propose to do differently than the outgoing DA on this issue?
MetroWest Dem: If you poke around the outgoing DA’s website, both his campaign website and the Norfolk DA’s website, it’s fairly easy to find postings and news stories about fraud cases (against the elderly and others) being charged, but the results of those prosecutions is harder to find. This is illustrative of your point, that financial crimes are difficult to prove. Such prosecutions often end in a guilty plea, where the defendant receives no, or limited, incarceration, and agrees to pay some amount of restitution to the victim, but usually the amount that can be documented is less than the total amount believed to have been taken.
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p>I have experience with such cases. One case involved a small-business owner–a woman in her 50s who ran a bakery/coffee shop–who was so busy trying to keep her business afloat, working 7 days a week, never a vacation, so busy in the store, she trusted her bookkeeper–another woman in her 50s–to keep the financial end in order. The bookkeeper was quietly draining off many tens of thousands of dollars. The bookkeeper’s motive was never apparent. Was it just greed? Gambling? Some feeling of entitlement? The bookkeeper kept infuriatingly quiet, never explained to the baker how or why she could so betray the baker’s trust and friendship. The baker wanted the bookkeeper to be incarcerated, but also needed the restitution. In the end, when the bookkeeper pleaded guilty, the court rejected my recommendation of committed time and sentenced the bookkeeper to a long term of probation, ordering her to pay back, over time, just the amount we could document had been stolen. I understand, and still feel, these many years later, the baker’s distress in the whole process.
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p>I have to disagree with your premise that physical abuse cases are relatively simple to prove. Physical abuse is often inflicted in private, with no witnesses. When the victim is particularly vulnerable, because of being very young, very old, or disabled, proving that the injuries were inflicted, and who did it, is not always relatively simple.
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p>The point is, to vindicate the victim’s rights, to seek some justice, whether the crime is physical abuse, sexual abuse, or fraud, the prosecutor has to be prepared and, just as important, willing to go to trial. I have that experience, of going to trial to prove difficult cases, I’ve done it many dozens of times. As District Attorney, I will push for trials, not plea bargains, in cases where vulnerable victims are preyed upon.
OK, fine — more trials. But are you going to beef up the unit handling them? And if so, with what money? And given the EPS cutbacks, how do you propose picking up that slack?
You’re right. The District Attorney is going to have to make choices about resources. My choices will be to beef up resources toward specialized units dealing with crimes against the most vulnerable victims. I believe in specialization for difficult cases. Experience, expertise, these things matter in difficult prosecutions, both in the investigation and the proof, and specialized units of prosecutors and investigators are the most effective way to prosecute them.
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p>Will that mean resources being redirected? Yes. And I disagree with the priorities of the other candidates for such resources. My opponent, for example, responds to the overwhelming vote in November 2008 to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana by pushing for dramatically increased penalties and new offenses for marijuana. These new laws require enforcement, using up police resources. The mandatory lengthy incarceration penalties he wants to impose require prosecution and court resources. I think this is wrong-headed, defying not just the expressed will of the voters, but also the clear history of the effectiveness of prohibition as a means to deal with problems from substances people do not want criminalized.
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p>I have experience with victim crimes. I will prioritize them, especially against more vulnerable victims.
Isn’t jail supposed to be, to some degree or another, a way of stopping people who pose a threat to society from continuing to threaten society?
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p>I’d be far more worried about someone with a drug problem being in my neighborhood than someone who committed long-term internal fraud at a business.
Are you just fearmongering? It sure reads that way to me. It starts with the title, and then dives right into child abuse. Now I have no idea (a) what percent of crimes involving felony violence are child abuse crimes, or (b) what percent of children are abused. But really — is a child molestation case “worse” than a sexual assault on a 19 (or 49) year old woman? Is it more or less frequent? Is it more or less preventable?
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p>I get it, we love our kids. I wouldn’t want someone to rape my kids — but I wouldn’t want someone to rape my wife or my mother either. Of all the crimes going on in 2010, (not just the physically violent), to lead in with child abuse seems like simple fearmongering.
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p>And yes, I live in Norfolk County.
stomv, i had the same reax as you.
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p>we want a prosecutor to be tough but fair.
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p>i think he’s going for that. first para = tough, second para = fair. and in fairness to the guy, his professional work has been, specifically, child abuse focused.
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p>he should rewrite this way:
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p>He should also say something like
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p>his website photo with the giant smile is a little freaky.
I would say that rape of a child is a worse crime than rape of an adult (no matter the gender). Children are psychologically incapable of processing this crime, to the point of completely repressing it and acting out in very anti-social ways that ruins their lives completely. Yes an adult victim will have a tough time dealing with this type of crime, but they are more likely to be developmentally capable of understanding they where victimized and it is more likely support counseling will have a more positive impact with them, than a child who often won’t even report the crime because–at that moment–they don’t even understand they were a victim of a horrible crime.
which is to say, to pick on one particular portion and emphasize it comes off as fearmongering.
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p>It’d be just as easy to write “while I have substantial experience in prosecuting heinous crimes on children, as a DA I intend on working hard to prosecute all violent criminals.”
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p>But that’s not what he wrote. Instead, he screamed “But won’t somebody think of the children!” from the rooftops. That kind of stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth as being something akin to cynically preying on fear.
…”is a child molestation case “worse” than a sexual assault on a 19 (or 49) year old” amd I answered it. I guess I have to much time on my hands.
I just disagree with the answer. I don’t think either is “worse” in any meaningful sense, which is to write that it’s a very un-useful question.
stomv: I’ve prosecuted a man who raped a woman in her late teens. I’ve also prosecuted a man who raped a woman in her 40s. Both those men went to prison. Both those victims thanked me for my work in their cases.
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p>It’s not fearmongering to say that I have experience prosecuting serious crimes, and that experience matters. If you disagree, if you think it’s preferable for the District Attorney, the lead prosecutor in the county, to have little or no prosecution experience, I’m not going to argue the point with you.
That’s not at all what I wrote.
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p>I expressed concern that you were fearmongering because you went big on “the children” — never mentioning, for example, your experience prosecuting the rape of the woman in her 40s. Why not? My instinct is that you were amping up the fearmongering.
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p>Look, I get it. You’ve got to get yourself elected, and you didn’t write anything inaccurate or particularly inappropriate. You certainly didn’t have to defend yourself by ignoring my criticism and then setting up a straw man argument totally orthogonal to what I wrote.
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p>I’m not a lawyer, but I’m not a dope either. While I wasn’t overly impressed with your diary, I wasn’t unimpressed either. Unfortunately, I am now.
and I don’t live in his district either, but why did I have to go to his web site and hunt around before I found something to imply that he’s a Democrat? On the “contribute” page, there’s a reference to having hard work to try and catch up to the two other Democrats running. That’s all. It should be front and center on his home page, and on his resume.
But honestly I don’t much care what the political affiliation of the DA is. He doesn’t get to vote on taxes or social spending. He is hired to make prosecutorial decisions. What I want form my DA is that he be tough on victim crimes and committed to diversion for non-victim crimes and for treatment over incarceration in drug cases. I would like to believe that a Democrat would hold these values but that is far from certain.
Which suggests a political leaning, but not, at least in my view, a political party association. Especially in Mass.
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p>This site occasionally (often?) comes close to being a simple media outlet of the Mass Democratic Party, but there is no explicit formulation.
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p>A democrat/republican divide in such a race implies that there are significant ideological differences that are relevant. What are these, with respect to the office of DA?
affiliation.
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p>Don’t know where that came from. Apologies.
as would I expect geographical differences.
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p>For example, I’d expect GOP DAs to push harder for maximum sentences, mitigating circumstances be damned. I’d expect GOP DAs to push harder to prosecute children as adults. I’d expect Dem DAs to work harder at treatment options instead of jail time for drug related crimes.
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p>These expectations are “statistical” — not for a particular crime or circumstance, but overall.
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p>And, since DA is a position that often launches to higher office, I do want a DA who is proud to be a Democrat.
But I’d suggest you read up on David Capeless, the Democratic DA in Berkshire county. He’s the most extreme of any Massachusetts DA about pushing for maximum sentences on marijuana offenses, including trying minors as adults.
if the job of DA were to be performed party blind, but a person’s party affiliation, or leaning, if an independent, colors how they approach their job, and how they decide which cases to pursue, and to what degree of punishment. Posts here have mentioned, or alluded to examples. So, unfortunately, knowing the party of a candidate you are considering voting for is an important step in determining who fills the bill for you as a voter when making your choice.