REMARKS OF DISTRICT ATTORNEY DANIEL F. CONLEY Rufin Society Convocation June 23, 2004 Thank you for inviting me today to speak about an issue that is very dear to me. We in Suffolk County live and serve in the most populous and diverse county in Massachusetts. Members of many vibrant minority communities call the cities of Boston, Chelsea and Revere and the town of Winthrop their home. Ours is a tapestry made all the richer by the many colors woven throughout. We take pride in our brothers and sisters from so many different ancestries: African-American, Asian, Cape Verdean, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Eastern European. All of us are shaped by our own backgrounds and upbringings. All of us have our own cultures, our own traditions, our own histories based on who we are, what we have seen, where we have been. We should take pride in our own family trees and all that is distinct and unique about us. But for all our ethnic and cultural differences, there is much that we share in common, no matter where our people came from. I have spent my entire life in public service, first as an assistant district attorney, later as a city councilor in Boston, and now as district attorney. My service has made something very clear to me: All of us, whoever we are - man or woman; black, white, Hispanic or Asian; Christian, Jew or Muslim - all of us want the same things. We want to protect our families. We want our homes and neighborhoods to be peaceful, harmonious places. We want to know that when our children go to school, they will get there safely, be safe while they are there, and arrive back home safely. This desire for peace and harmony and justice knows no single color. It knows no one faith or ethnicity. It is universal. So, too, must our pursuit of these goals be color-blind and even-handed. The criminal justice system is founded on the certainty of punishment for the offender, the belief that we must be held accountable for our actions. But our system must also be centered on the moral conviction of fairness and equality. The question before us, then, is how do we rise to that challenge? How do we, in law enforcement and the legal system in general, and at the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in particular, ensure that we understand the concerns and meet the needs of this diverse collection of people we are so honored to serve. Most simply stated, we need, in a meaningful way, to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. Just as our country - and our county - is a tapestry of many interwoven threads, each bringing its own particular hue and luster to the overall picture, so too must our office seek and be enriched by employees of different backgrounds and life experience. Since my first day as district attorney, I have made a commitment to recruit and hire outstanding minority candidates, and to promote minority candidates to leadership roles. We work closely with the Boston Lawyers Group, an organization of managing partners from Boston's largest law firms that works to increase diversity in the city's major firms. I have spoken to minority student associations in our city's law schools. Two members of my leadership team, Chief of District Courts Stacey Fortes-White and Second Assistant District Attorney Gerry Stewart, visit law schools regularly to explain what we do and encourage minority students to join that mission. We actively recruit minority candidates from government and public interest hiring forums; we have sent a representative to the Black Prosecutors Annual Meeting in California; we have sought informal referrals from several of Boston's ministers. We enjoy significant minority involvement in our successful internship program; and we recently hosted a reception for recipients of the Book Awards given by the Massachusetts Black Judges Conference. We are reaping the fruits we've sown. I was delighted when a young man named Vy Troung agreed, at no small financial sacrifice to himself and his family, to join our cause. Vy's amazing story began on a refugee boat in the South Pacific and continues today in Dorchester District Court, where he is only the second Vietnamese ADA to ever serve in Massachusetts. One quarter of our new hires in 2003 were minorities. This year's hiring class will boast almost 30 percent minority representation. Is our work in this area done? Surely it is not, but the face of the Suffolk District Attorney's Office now more accurately mirrors that of the constituency we serve than ever before in our history. We are not alone. We are seeing increased minority representation at all levels of the justice system - in the judiciary, in the probation department, in our police departments. These agencies, and we at the Suffolk District Attorney's Office, cannot help but be enriched by that inclusion. We are reaping what we have sown. We are building bridges to communities where none ever existed before. We are building relationships with people and families throughout our neighborhoods. We are building bonds based on trust, on common ground and, yes, on an understanding that whatever the color of our faces, whatever holidays and traditions we observe, whatever place our grandparents called home, we today, here in Boston in the year 2004, all want the same thing: A safe place to live and work, to enjoy our families, to raise our children. We are reaping what we have sown, and we are better for it. I commend all of you here this morning for your work in seeking out qualified minority candidates who want to serve the public with passion and dedication. I am so pleased that those efforts are continuing, and are gaining momentum across the judicial system. Rest assured that that will always be one our priorities at the Suffolk District Attorney's Office. This will always be a priority because it is interwoven with the goals of justice and equality under the law that we strive for every day, just as the tapestry that is Suffolk County is interwoven with so many beautiful and colorful threads, spun from both those who serve and those who are served. Thank you.