REMARKS OF SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY DANIEL F. CONLEY: M.C.R.A. ANNUAL CONFERENCE March 18, 2006 Good morning. Thank you so much for having me today. I was honored by your invitation to speak today, and I’m very happy to be here in the midst of this Saint Patrick’s Day weekend. Those of you who work in state courts in Suffolk County may have had yesterday off. Of course, the real reason for the holiday is Evacuation Day, when we celebrate the British retreat from Boston in the Revolutionary War. I’m sure, however, that more of us were celebrating Saint Patrick casting the the snakes from Ireland than General Washington chasing British warships from the harbor. That’s all right, because we’re proud of our Irish heritage in this state, which just might have the most Irish people – or at least the most Irish politicians – this side of Dublin. It’s for good reason that we’re proud to have sent an O’Neill to the House speakership and a Kennedy – who, we remember, loved to spend time on the Cape – to the White House. But if we’re all a little bit Irish on Saint Patty’s Day, as they say, perhaps what we in Massachusetts should be most proud of is not any one ethnic heritage, but the vibrant mix of cultures that graces our state. In Boston, where I serve as the district attorney of Suffolk County, which has more than 600,000 people, we are blessed with a melting pot of people from all corners of the earth, and that is something truly worth celebrating. That rich tapestry makes Boston, and this entire state, a better place to live. I know you didn’t necessarily come here for a sociology lecture, though, so let me really begin by saying thank you to each and every one of you. Thank you from me, and thank you from my office. Thank you for the important job you perform each day. Your contribution to the judicial system is a vital one. The court could not function without you. More than 20 years ago, when I first began to learn about the law at Suffolk University, I was struck by the vast scope and history of the legal profession. Few fields of endeavor have had an impact on as many people as has the practice of law. With more than two decades of legal and government service under my belt since those days as a wide-eyed student in the Suffolk Law Library, I am more certain of that than ever. Even today, in the proudest moments of my professional career, I am humbled by the knowledge contained in our legal libraries – by the history and wisdom found in statutes and case laws, and in the opinions of the great legal thinkers. The law, it’s been said, is a living thing, an organism that grows and changes every day. In courtrooms across this Commonwealth, from Dorchester and Roxbury to Hyannis and New Bedford, and across the nation, from rural single-room courthouses to the Supreme Court Building in Washington, the law grows with us as our nation reaches toward its ideals of liberty and equality. It grows and perfects itself with the arguments offered and briefs filed by legal giants and small-town lawyers alike. But who records that growth? Who is charged with documenting the words that still endure decades and centuries after they were spoken, words whose meaning continue still today to improve the lives of men and women who were not even alive to hear them uttered? Who transcribed the proceedings that ended segregation and upheld freedom of speech? Who recorded the Scopes Monkey Trial and the prosecutions of evil men like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer? That duty, of course, falls to the court reporter. On your shoulders is the weighty responsibility for speed and accuracy, of course, but also the more important task of committing the spoken word to history and posterity. Yours is a task that, in one form or another, stretched back to the humanistic culture. We know something of the Trial of Socrates in ancient Greece because of what witnesses to the proceedings recorded. Court records from the trial of the British soldiers who fired the shots at the Boston massacre give us an early glimpse into John Adams’ brilliance and passion. And when a young lawyer named Thurgood Marshall stood before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, and spoke the words that helped overturn centuries of oppression, it was a court stenographer who recorded those immortal lyrics of equality. Without the court reporter and the quiet keys of the stenotype, some of the greatest orations on this nation’s ideals would have been whispers, subject to the fallacies of memory or historical revision. But that does not happen to the words expended in our courtrooms – all of them, in a sense, spoken in pursuit of equal justice before the law – because you capture them and write them down. It was probably in 1984, when I was hired as a prosecutor in the office I now lead, that I really began to understand and appreciate the value of court reporters. Like many others before and after me, I worked my way up from the breakneck pace of the district courts to various Superior Court teams. There, I was fortunate enough to have been assigned to the state’s first Anti-Gang Task Force, the forerunner to what is now an integral part of my office and a key unit in most big city D.A.’s offices. I tried cases of domestic violence and drug trafficking, and I eventually joined the team of men and women who prosecute homicides. It was rarely easy, but it was always gratifying. Above all, though, I was mindful of the immense responsibility I had – to the victim and his or her family, who deserve justice; to the citizens of the Commonwealth, who deserve a judicial system that is honest, transparent, and effective; and even to the offender, whose right to a fair trial must never be forgotten in our quest to achieve justice. Like many of you, I imagine, I’m left cold by the television dramas that try to recreate the tension and emotion of the courtroom, because nothing can compare to being there. No hour-long fiction, no matter the author or the actors, can match the human drama that is played out before a judge and jury. We are all human, and we cannot help but be affected by what we see and hear in our courtrooms. It has always been so. A few years ago, CNN interviewed a woman named Vivien Spitz, who was the youngest court reporter to serve at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Spitz was assigned to the trials of doctors from the concentration camps – and recorded the details of their gruesome experiments. It is true that we must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and one of the reasons we never will is the historical record created by court reporters like Vivien Spitz. But their work took a personal toll. Speaking of the Nazi doctors seated before her in the courtroom, Spitz told CNN, “I spent almost one year looking at the greatest two rows of evil that anyone could ever imagine.” She added, “I would have to put my head down as I was writing because I had tears in my eyes from what I was hearing.” Like Ms. Spitz, I’m sure we’ve all witnessed and worked through moments in a courtroom that have touched us in some way. I spent almost ten years as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County; they were among the most formative years of my life, and they shaped the way I look at people, policy, and this thing we call justice. When I left the D.A.’s office to become a Boston City Councilor, I saw that as the logical next step in a continuing effort to right wrongs and help victims. It was a chance to fight crime and improve the lot of my fellow citizens on a larger scale, rather than doing it one case at a time. As the chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, I authored several ordinances that drastically reduced teenagers’ access to the cheap but deadly knives that were being sold in corner stores, and I helped lead a movement in favor of a home rule petition that prevents convicted domestic abusers from obtaining firearms licenses. This sort of lawmaking – proactive and preventative – is what I am proudest of, and it’s what I try to carry on in my current duty as District Attorney. That and, of course, prosecuting those who break the law. I don’t have time to personally try cases anymore, what with all the responsibilities of leading one of the busiest public prosecutor’s offices in New England, but I enjoy talking about cases with the lawyers in my office, sharing whatever insights and strategy I have may gleaned from my years in their shoes. And there is no shortage of cases to strategize about. Suffolk may be the smallest county in Massachusetts, but it accounts for almost 25% of the state’s violent crime. In all, we have about 40,000 cases per year handled by just 125 assistant district attorneys, and we work with less than 18% of the funding given to prosecutors statewide. I am so proud of that effort put forth by those 125 prosecutors in my office; their devotion to seeking justice for those who have been wronged deserves and demands respect. In our business, as in any other, we are constantly asked to do more with less. Much of my job, then, is trying to assemble the tools that today’s prosecutors need to do their jobs. That includes financial resources, to help us keep the talented young lawyers who too often leave the jobs they love for more profitable pursuits in the private sector. It also includes any number of legislative and policy initiatives to address the changing trends in crime and crimefighting. My office’s most fundamental mission since its establishment in the 19th century has been to prosecute lawbreakers. In any criminal case, the district attorney and his or her staff represent not just the victims of crime, but the people of the Commonwealth at large. Just as a victim deserves justice, so does society as a whole – by holding criminal offenders accountable for their actions, we defend the common safety and we make good on our nation’s great egalitarian promise of equal protection and treatment under the law. But a district attorney’s job doesn’t begin with empaneling a jury or end with taking a verdict. I have always seen the D.A.’s office as a protector and advocate for victims and their families – for the senior citizen who is swindled out of his or her savings by a contracting scam; for the child who is exploited or abused by an authority figure; for the survivors of those whose lives have been taken by violence. These are the people we work for. They are not statistics, they are not just a number – not just homicide # 10 for the current year – but human faces, people who, like all of us, have their own story, and didn’t plan on violence being part of that story. Every victim, no matter the life choices he or she made, no matter his or her position on society’s ladder, is, or was, someone’s son, or parent, or wife or husband or brother or sister. Every victim is loved or is loved by someone, and every victim is a very real person to us, not just a number. One way we show our commitment to victims is through our Victim-Witness Advocacy Program. For every case involving a crime against a person, we assign not just an assistant DA to try the case against a perpetrator, but also assign a victim-witness advocate who can guide the victim through the intricacies of the court system. As many of you probably remember from your early days on the job, that system can be confusing and intimidating for the lay person, especially for people who have come here from other nations or who, for whatever reason, can be as afraid of police and prosecutors as they are of criminals. The advocate is an invaluable resource for those victims and families, especially when the assigned prosecutor can be handling upwards of two dozen pending cases. They are kind people, incredibly compassionate and devoted, and all too often unsung in the media. We must always keep an eye to the future, though, and the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds true for us as well. By reaching out to young people today, by introducing them to police and prosecutors before street culture has a chance to sink its hooks into their hearts and minds, and by encouraging them to dream and achieve at healthy, productive enterprises, we build stronger, safer communities. We build a positive future, and we leave a legacy of service and selflessness. Each year, my office awards thousands of dollars to area non-profit groups that work to steer young people away from lives filled by drugs, gangs, and crime. The awards are financed by money seized from drug dealers – it’s a bit of poetic justice, I think, that those who did their worst to poison a community ended up paying for drug prevention programs. Last year, the grants totaled more than ever before, with $50,000 going to after-school programs, arts and athletics centers, and job training facilities – the kinds of places that desperately need funding. Each year, we organize a youth soccer tournament for inner city kids, and I never hesitate to dispatch members of my staff to take part in mock trials and internet safety presentations for young students. After all, how can we expect our kids to care about their communities if we turn our backs and leave them for the criminals to exploit? Intervention and prevention, in the form of progressive programs and education, will always be more valuable than punishment and incarceration. Building character and pride and civic consciousness in one kid today doesn’t just help that child – it adds another force for decency in his or her community. It’s this sort of thinking that guides me and my office in the 21st century. I’m fortunate enough to be joined in that thinking by the mayors, police chiefs, and legislators with whom I work. I lead an office of prosecutors, and I’m devoted to that leadership, but I’m fortunate enough to wield a bully pulpit that can effectively advocate for change and policy initiatives. One successful example of those initiatives are the Priority Disposition Sessions, a set of dedicated sessions in the Boston Municipal Court that handles only gun cases. Despite our tremendous success in charging and convicting gun offenders in Suffolk County – we had a 90 percent conviction rate last year – we’ve found that individuals caught with guns are often out on bail shortly after their arrests, not to return to court for a year or more. During that time, they’re back on the streets, where their very presence suggests to some that the criminal justice system can’t hold them. This sends the wrong message to the majority of law-abiding residents, and it sends the wrong message to those who would try to emulate or imitate the criminal. I worked closely with the Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Court Department, Charles Johnson, to develop a program that would cut in half the time between arrest and trial, and that program has been a tremendous success so far – well over half of the Gun Court defendants have pled guilty in its first three weeks, several more have been convicted, and we have prevailed against numerous defense motions to suppress, which is often where the case is truly won or lost. I’ve lent my voice to a call for the elimination of the statute of limitations for child sexual assault. I took office as District Attorney just when the full magnitude of Boston’s clergy abuse crisis was coming to light, and as I pored over the cases that were being referred to us, I found that many of them had taken place decades earlier. The state Legislature had by that time extended the time during which criminal charges could be brought against a child rapist from six to 15 years, but I realized that even that was not enough time, and that many of the cases I was hearing about could no longer be legally prosecuted. This was a tragedy for all of us – the victims, their families, even our prosecutors and advocates – and I resolved that it would not befall another victim. Earlier this week, I joined some of those survivors, as well as children’s advocates, medical experts, and mental health professionals at the State House to testify in support of a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations on child sexual assault and acknowledge that child predators use fear, shame, and threats to prevent children from reporting their abuse. No one should be denied justice because their trauma prevented them from asking for help in time to beat an unfair deadline. Another issue that I’ve tried to keep front and center is that of witness intimidation. It’s no secret that most violent crime occurs in our inner cities, in economically-disadvantaged neighborhoods that are populated primarily by people of color. These are the people who need our help the most when it comes to keeping their streets safe, and yet they are the ones most likely to fear retaliation for cooperating with authorities. Without the testimony of these good and honest people, though, it’s monumentally difficult to prosecute violent offenders, and the cycle perpetuates itself. This is not just a public safety issue or a criminal justice issue – it’s a civil rights issue. The residents of Dorchester and Mattapan should not fear for their safety any more than the residents of Belmont or Beacon Hill, and yet we’ve found that there is some degree of witness or victim intimidation in up to 90% of our gun and gang violence cases, cases that come to us primarily from those impoverished neighborhoods. That’s why I helped to draft key sections of a witness protection and anti-gang bill that, after no small amount of wrangling in the House and Senate, was passed by both chambers and signed by the Governor on Thursday. I am deeply proud of this accomplishment, which provides funds for relocating witnesses and strengthens the penalties for perjury, misuse of grand jury minutes, and the use of threats or violence to dissuade someone from testifying in court. Such behavior strikes at the very heart of our justice system, and our response – the combined efforts of my office, local police forces, state lawmakers, members of the ministerial community, and citizen activists alike – is one of which we can all be proud. We struck a great blow for justice. One of the other challenges we’ve confronted in recent years is reforming the way we ask witnesses to identify suspects. A few months after I became district attorney, a series of old convictions, prosecuted anywhere from 5 to 15 years earlier, were called into question by new evidence. It fell upon my office to review these cases thoroughly and impartially to determine whether justice had been done. One of the most important sources of information we had in those cases, I happy to tell you, were the recorded transcripts of those old trials. In reviewing the information – including the work of the court reporters – we determined that one common thread running through many of the old wrongful convictions was mistaken identification by a witness. Because of that, my office and the Boston Police Department convened a task force, which included not only prosecutors and police officers, but also defense lawyers and the leading academic in the field of eyewitness identification. They proposed more than two dozen reforms to the way police ask witnesses to try to identify suspects. Our recommendations were called the “gold standard” for witness reforms across the nation, and I’m proud to say they are now in use by every police department in Suffolk County. Of course, we make use of transcripts of court proceedings every day in the Suffolk DA’s Office. I personally relied on trial transcripts and grand jury minutes back when I was a front line prosecutor handling cases with drug traffickers, abusers, and murderers, and the prosecutors in my office still do so today. Those documents, representations of sworn testimony, are indispensable in our efforts to hold offenders accountable. We use them to examine discrepancies in testimony, or to introduce key facts a recalcitrant witness claims to have forgotten. You are part of a proud tradition, your work as important and valuable to the court you serve as Vivian Spitz’s was to the court she served. Whether recording an argument before Chief Justice John Roberts, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, or the presiding judge of a suburban district court, the court reporter’s work is a valuable and necessary service to this country and to this state. I tell our young prosecutors all the time that our job is not to seek convictions. It is, rather, to achieve justice, whatever that may mean for the Commonwealth, for the victim, and for the defendant before the bar. To find justice before the law, you must find the truth. To determine the truth, you must have a record of facts, including those facts stated in a court of law. As the recorders of those facts, you are, at day’s end, a key player in that never-ending and sublime process that is the law, that is the search for the truth. On behalf of the criminal justice system, I thank you for helping us find the truth each and every day. Thank you for having me.