In the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on dubious sex abuse cases, lays out Martha Coakley's role in the notorious Fells Acres convictions.
Rabinowitz concludes:
Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants."
What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley's concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence.
If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.
Lefty criminal justice blogger Jeralyn Merritt chimes in here, and states in an earlier post of Coakley, "I wouldn't vote for her for dog catcher."
My article on Coakley's record as a prosecutor here.
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Johnny Longtorso|1.15.10 @ 10:35AM|#
Government means never having to say you're sorry.
|1.15.10 @ 10:56AM|#
Government means never having to say you're
sorrywrong.Sam Grove|1.15.10 @ 12:04PM|#
Both work.
|1.15.10 @ 10:36AM|#
The real crime is that Martha Coakley isn't doing time in prison.
|1.15.10 @ 10:47AM|#
This.
Martha Coakley is an abysmal human being. If there was any justice in this world she'd (at the very least) be doing a three year stint in prison (as long as she forced Gerald Amirault to suffer after everyone else in the world knew he was innocent). Instead she's about to be elected to the US Senate.
creech|1.15.10 @ 10:51AM|#
No, she'll be warming a seat in the Senate, getting paid damn nice money with a damn nice pension. I wonder how Mr. Amirault's life is going, and that of the children pressured into lying about him? Those kids are grown now and I wonder if they feel any remorse or anger? If so, maybe the GOP candidate should try to get them to speak out against Ms. Coakley's candidacy.
Kyle Jordan|1.15.10 @ 10:37AM|#
"If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason."
That's a really great line. Perfect description.
DADIODADDY|1.15.10 @ 10:47AM|#
Just another in a long line of douche bag pols that MA seems to have a huge talent for producing...
|1.15.10 @ 11:01AM|#
A whole lot of "lalalala" and nose holding in the comments section of the Jeralyn Merritt blog post. Fucking douchebags. Party before people or before anything else for that matter.
Sometimes you do get the gummint you deserve.
The Art-P.O.G.|1.15.10 @ 11:08AM|#
Yup. Too many imbeciles in the Democratic and Republican parties.
|1.15.10 @ 11:14AM|#
The very notion of voting party or blindly defending a party is stupid.
|1.15.10 @ 11:18AM|#
It's one thing to hold your nose about some jerk running for office because he/she is on your team. It's entirely another to do it about a person who has wrongly prosecuted--and persecuted--people just for political gain.
Doing so raises you from TEAM RED TEAM BLUE asshole to true depraved scumbag. But we already knew that, I guess.
|1.15.10 @ 11:55AM|#
Exactly. If there is a Republican out there running for office with a record like Coakley's, and I am sure there is, let me be the first to wish him ill. It is bad enough that this stuff happened. But to give one of the perpetrators a Senate seat is beyond description.
Ted S.|1.15.10 @ 2:17PM|#
What did I do to deserve it? I didn't vote for either major party!
Xeones|1.15.10 @ 11:30AM|#
Doing so raises you from TEAM RED TEAM BLUE asshole to true depraved scumbag.
To be fair, that's not so far to climb.
|1.15.10 @ 11:44AM|#
No, but it's still a step one has to take willingly.
Kyle Jordan|1.15.10 @ 12:14PM|#
Like I said before, evil.
Wittingly or unwittlingly.
WWJGD|1.15.10 @ 11:31AM|#
From first TalkLeft link comments
"if we aren't voting for a prosecutor because all they do is attempt to put people in cages, shouldn't we equally never vote for a defense attorney because all they do is try to turn murderers and rapists back onto the street?"
Absolutely stunning
|1.15.10 @ 11:45AM|#
The extent to which people will equivocate to reach the conclusion they've already decided they want to reach should never stun you.
Attorney|1.15.10 @ 11:49AM|#
Radley, why do you hate children?
Joe M|1.15.10 @ 11:49AM|#
Also from the TalkLeft comments, comparing Coakley to Harold Ford:
Why, that's much worse than unrepentantly, wrongfully putting people in prison!
|1.15.10 @ 11:53AM|#
And don't forget she gave Father Goeghan probation in 1995 after two elementary school kids said he molested them. But she let him walk with a differed adjudication and nothing on his record. And then she has the nerve to make her political career out of prosecuting him seven years later after she let him walk.
|1.15.10 @ 11:52AM|#
Forget red team versus blue team. Forget Obamacare and everything else. Anyone who cares about civil rights and liberty in this country has to hope that Coakley loses. I can honestly say that if she were a Republican I would say the same thing. Shame on any party for nominating such a immoral hack for the Senate.
|1.15.10 @ 12:05PM|#
If there is any justice in this world, before the election, Gerald Amirault will be given an acute and terminal diagnosis the very same day he acquires a very powerful handgun.
Not that I wish any more tragedy on Mr. Amirault than has already been inflicted upon him by this amoral, reptilian-brained power-monger, but a man can dream, can't he?
|1.15.10 @ 12:17PM|#
If there's any justice, Martha Coakley will be diagnosed with an acute and terminal illness, and the only way she'll be able to live will be if Gerald Amirault gives her a blood/marrow/kidney/etc. transplant.
(yes, I know that's impossible. But humor me, ok?)
|1.15.10 @ 12:21PM|#
That sounds like a bad hollywood movie script.
|1.15.10 @ 12:36PM|#
OK, that's a bit more high-roadier than mine.
People like her just bring out the bloody vengeance side of me.
|1.15.10 @ 1:56PM|#
There isn't any justice in the world, so let's refrain from vacuous hypotheticals.
EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy|1.15.10 @ 12:36PM|#
I like it.
Do you think he'd hurt her worse by refusing or by very, very publicly agreeing?
|1.15.10 @ 1:00PM|#
Can't we just lash her to a stake and set her on fire? It's traditional, in Massachusetts, or so I have been told.
|1.15.10 @ 1:06PM|#
I think we have to see if she floats, first.
Which way to the Charles?
johnG|1.15.10 @ 3:19PM|#
or if she weighs the same as a duck
|1.15.10 @ 1:20PM|#
Martha Coakley: Queen of the Kangaroo Court
|1.15.10 @ 1:24PM|#
In a just world, instead of being sent to the U.S. Senate, she would be sent to MCI-Framingham on a trumped up charge, and face a Kafkaesqe nightmare at every turn as she tried to prove her innocence. Or, given that the Fells Acre case was the modern day equivalent of the Salem witch trial, maybe her guilt or innocence on that charge should be determined by a modern-day version of the ordeal by water: She'd be put in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car, which would be driven off a bridge. If she came up, she'd be judged guilty; if she stayed under, she'd be judged innocent.
|1.15.10 @ 3:04PM|#
"She'd be put in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car, which would be driven off a bridge. If she came up, she'd be judged guilty; if she stayed under, she'd be judged innocent."
That would explain why Kennedy surfaced but Mary Jo did not.
wayne|1.15.10 @ 5:57PM|#
+1
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Good!
thomas sabo|3.10.10 @ 3:58AM|#
That would explain why Kennedy surfaced but Mary Jo did not.
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Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate
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