New DA Gets Plaudits, Some Criticism
By Shaun Sutner
Telegram & Gazette [Worcester]
June 3, 2007
http://telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/NEWS/706030500/1116
Just over a week ago, District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. faced down a swarm of television crews after the arraignment in Gardner District Court of a 32-year-old woman and her boyfriend charged with beating their 2-year-old daughter, who had died in the hospital a few days earlier.
The May 24 press conference was at least the fourth time that Mr. Early, who has been in office for five months since becoming Worcester County's first new district attorney in 30 years, had made himself available to the media after a violent crime.
By contrast, Mr. Early's notably reclusive predecessor, John J. Conte, rarely went before the cameras during his 30 years in office. If he did have something to say regarding a crime, it was usually "no comment," though he sometimes would speak more extensively about non-criminal matters.
In addition to being more personally accessible, Mr. Early has added to his staff a position that most of his counterparts across the state have traditionally maintained but Mr. Conte did without — a public relations spokesman.
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| Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. says he is keeping his campaign promise to make the district attorney’s office more open and “transparent.” Photo by Betty Jenewin |
"Most of them do, and now this one does," Mr. Early said, referring to his fellow district attorneys' practice of using a media specialist.
His spokesman, Timothy J. Connolly, a former Telegram & Gazette reporter and former state Department of Revenue spokesman, handles most day-to-day media inquiries. Mr. Early's appearances at crime scenes are parceled out carefully.
"I try to go to everything if we deem it important, and to stay away from grandstanding," Mr. Early said in an interview in his wood-paneled office in the old Worcester District Court building.
Mr. Early says this approach fulfills his campaign promise from last fall to make the district attorney's office more open and "transparent."
| "I said, ‘Let’s get this wrapped up." This case has been around long enough.
WORCESTER District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr., SAYING HE TOLD AN ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY TO PICK UP THE PACE ON A CASE |
By most accounts, he has followed through on that pledge, and others, though some observers note that several long-unsolved crimes — including the murder of juvenile court employee Candace Allen Scola — are still pending under Mr. Early's watch, despite his establishment of a Cold Case Squad in March. And clergy abuse victim advocates question whether Mr. Early is moving quickly enough on those cases.
The 49-year-old prosecutor has met with crime victims, pushed his assistant district attorneys to join the Worcester County Bar Association (several dozen of them have), and shown up regularly at bar events, community meetings and even political gatherings such as candidate fund-raisers.
Mr. Early also has promoted female prosecutors to high posts in his office, including Jane Sullivan to chief of appeals and Kathleen Dello Stritto to county courts supervisor.
When Mr. Early appeared at the side of his brother-in-law, Worcester City Councilor Frederick C. Rushton, last month at Mr. Rushton's mayoral candidacy announcement, it was the first time in decades that the county's top law enforcement official had made such a public political gesture.
Mr. Conte, while a Democrat like Mr. Early, mostly shunned party and city politics, focusing nearly exclusively on his own re-election efforts. That stance did not always endear him to fellow politicians, but it earned him an image among the public as being above ordinary politics.
"Blood is thicker than politics," is how Mr. Early explains his appearance at Mr. Rushton's press conference.
As for the Scola case, Mr. Early said Joseph P. Gaughan, the special prosecutor assigned to the 2002 homicide, is winding up his review of the evidence and witnesses in the brutal stabbing and should have his report ready "within several months." In November, Mr. Gaughan said his probe would be done by early winter.
"We're getting closer," Mr. Early said, adding that Mr. Gaughan has had to re-examine some evidence, which has extended the process.
Andrew G. Wailgum, the lawyer for Ms. Scola's family, said he's met with Mr. Gaughan, though not with Mr. Early, and is satisfied with the special prosecutor's progress.
"It's not an overnight thing. We've waited this long and we have to get it right," Mr. Wailgum said. "Eventually, I think they'll come up with an indictment."
Meanwhile, Mr. Early has won plaudits for making good on another campaign promise, to concentrate his office's energy and resources more on juvenile crime.
He has added assistant district attorneys to the juvenile court, assigned an assistant district attorney full-time to juvenile cases involving sexual assault, and appointed a well-respected veteran assistant, Donald G. Xenos, to head his juvenile court division.
These moves have resulted in a dramatic reduction in the case backlog in juvenile court, according to judicial officials.
The wait for a jury trial in juvenile court has gone from 16 weeks when Mr. Early took over in January, to a month, said Judge Carol A. Erskine, first justice of Worcester Juvenile Court.
"He is certainly listening to the juvenile court on issues that need to be addressed," said Judge Erskine, who worked with Mr. Early to file legislation making it a crime to harbor juvenile runaways.
William T. Breault, chairman of the Main South Public Safety Alliance, said Mr. Early has reached out to him and his group about concerns over crime in his depressed inner-city neighborhood.
Mr. Early has also impressed Mr. Breault's group by promoting the community liaison prosecutor who has always attended its monthly meetings, Edward N. Karcasinas Jr., to first assistant district attorney. Despite his lofty new title as second-in-command to the top prosecutor, he is still coming to the meetings.
"This DA has been very, very accessible," Mr. Breault said.
Not all of the reviews are as positive.
Daniel Dick, victim support coordinator for the Worcester chapter of Voice of the Faithful, said that while Mr. Early assured him that he would look into cases of suspended or retired priests alleged to have committed sex crimes, but who have not been criminally charged, he has seen little action.
"I hear the words, but I don't see any follow-through," Mr. Dick said. "These are credible allegations, but these people have not been tried."
While Mr. Early was viewed suspiciously by some clergy abuse victim advocates because he defended a Worcester priest, the Rev. Joseph A. Coonan, when he was in private practice last year, he is not seen as quite as close to the church hierarchy as Mr. Conte. The former district attorney donated as much as $500 a year to the diocesan Bishop's Fund.
Mr. Early, through his campaign committee, has given smaller amounts.
One clergy abuse case that is in the courts, involving the Rev. John Szantyr, 76, of Waterbury, Conn., has languished since the retired priest was first charged in 2003 with sexually assaulting a child in the mid-1980s, when he was assigned to a Worcester parish.
Mr. Early said that he recently told the assistant district attorney who Mr. Conte assigned to prosecute the case, Joseph J. Reilly III, to pick up the pace. The DA promised that it would go to trial by August.
"I said, 'Let's get this wrapped up,' " Mr. Early said. "This case has been around long enough."
Mr. Connolly says Mr. Early has met with some victims and intends to review all the cases.
"He understands the seriousness of clergy abuse," he said. "It's tough for him personally."
In the adversarial realm of the trial courts, Mr. Early has made moves that have both worried and drawn praise from criminal defense lawyers.
Michael S. Hussey, chief of the public defender's office in Worcester, welcomed Mr. Early's decision to not only hold onto some of Mr. Conte's top prosecutors, but to promote them and give them more autonomy than their predecessors. They include Thomas E. Landry, chief of Superior Court, and Timothy M. Bibaud, who runs District Court.
But Mr. Hussey also expressed concern that Mr. Early's initiative to extend grand jury sittings from two to three weeks a month could result in fewer probable cause hearings, in which defense lawyers get a chance to argue their clients' case early on.
"The defense bar will strenuously be opposing that," Mr. Hussey said. "But he's doing a great job so far. Let's hope he keeps it up."
A leading private defense lawyer, Louis P. Aloise of Worcester, applauded Mr. Early's move to import top prosecutorial talent from Suffolk County, such as Assistant District Attorney Terrence M. Reidy, for Superior Court duty. Experienced prosecutors make everyone's job easier, Mr. Aloise said, and make for smoother functioning courtrooms.
Mr. Aloise, who was a big supporter of Mr. Conte, said Mr. Early's biggest challenge will be securing enough funding from the Legislature to make his office successful.
The budget for the Worcester district attorney's office and its 141 employees was $8.2 million for fiscal 2007, which ends June 30. Gov. Deval L. Patrick proposed increasing that to $8.4 million for fiscal 2008. The state Senate has earmarked $8.5 million; the House, $8.4 million. Either way, Mr. Early will get about a 2 percent increase when the spending plan is finalized later this month, less of a boost than Mr. Conte pulled in for fiscal 2006, for example, but something of a success in light of the state's tight finances.
Mr. Early is counting on savvy political hands on his staff such as Brian M. D'Andrea, a former prosecutor, Statehouse aide and top Massachusetts Highway Department and Turnpike Authority manager, to manage his relations with lawmakers.
"That's an art, and Conte was the master of it. It's a tough act to follow," Mr. Aloise said. "It's a matter of bringing home the bacon."
Contact Shaun Sutner by e-mail at ssutner@telegram.com.
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