Second Chelsea Staffer Recognized as Outstanding District Court Prosecutor

BOSTON, June 15, 2017—Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley last night honored the supervising attorney in Chelsea District Court for his work as the point prosecutor in the Department of Public Health drug lab crisis caused by rogue chemist Annie Dookhan – shortly after that prosecutor presented a different award in appreciation to a top member of the Chelsea staff.

Citing the praise DeMore received from a former associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court and others familiar with the crisis at the Hinton Laboratory, Conley presented Assistant District Attorney Vincent DeMore with the Special Recognition Award for the role he played in identifying, assessing, and resolving more than 16,000 Suffolk County drug convictions in which Dookhan’s certificate of drug analysis was part of the evidence along with packaging materials, cutting agents, scales, ledgers, phone records, text messages, video footage, field tests, the observations of police officers, and the statements of independent witnesses.

The award, one of several presented at the annual Suffolk Awards ceremony in Boston, recognized DeMore’s “outstanding contributions to the interests of justice and principled application of the law at every level of criminal practice,” Conley said.

In a 2015 letter, Associate Justice Margot Botsford of the Supreme Judicial Court singled out DeMore and his Essex County counterpart for recognition, writing “Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Vincent DeMore and Essex County Assistant District Attorney Quentin Weld undertook to work with IT staff and others in each of their offices, as well as with police departments in each of their counties, to match … drug samples sent to the Hinton Lab to actual case docket numbers. Mr. DeMore and Mr. Weld did a wonderful job and produced extremely useful information.”

In a memorandum later the same year, Botsford commended the Suffolk and Essex district attorneys, writing that their prosecutors, including DeMore, “from the inception have participated constructively in all the proceedings before me … and have voluntarily provided enormous assistance to the court … in the complex and time-consuming process of identifying Dookhan defendants in their respective counties.”

And in her report this spring as a special master assigned to the proceedings, Botsford wrote “to thank and commend in particular the assistant district attorneys who have worked so hard on this effort, a group that includes Assistant District Attorney Vince DeMore of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.” The April 20 report followed Conley’s recommendation to dismiss more than 15,000 Dookhan-related cases under a framework established by the SJC late last year.

Conley praised DeMore’s labor over a period of years to identify, quantify, litigate, and in many proceedings vacate the thousands of affected cases.

“Of all the lawyers with a hand in decisions like Scott, Francis, Ruffin, and Bridgeman – decisions that shaped the Commonwealth’s response to an unprecedented challenge – I could always count on one in particular to help chart the fairest course forward, even if it took countless hours of thankless work to reach the destination,” Conley said. “In district, superior, and appellate court proceedings, he was a world-class example of the modern prosecutor’s versatility and discretion.”

DeMore received the award shortly after presenting Assistant District Attorney Kacie Sherman, whom he supervises, with the Outstanding District Court Prosecutor Award for her work with crime victims and civilian witnesses in Chelsea District Court over the course of the past year – even while serving as a de facto acting supervisor as DeMore fulfilled his responsibilities in tackling the DPH lab crisis.

As an example, DeMore highlighted Sherman’s service to the victim of a homeless domestic violence victim beaten with a brick while living in the area beneath the Tobin Bridge. Sherman worked tirelessly to ensure that DNA testing on the weapon and a swab from the assailant was completed in time for trial. She teamed up with Chelsea Police detectives and victim-witness advocates to stay in touch with the victim and ensure that witnesses would be present to testify – tasks made exponentially more difficult, DeMore said, by the fact that they were members of the homeless community. A jury convicted the defendant of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on May 23.

“Vince and Kacie are examples of everything we ask of Suffolk prosecutors,” Conley said. “They’re compassionate. They’re conscientious. They give a voice to victims and they protect the rights of the accused. They’re among the best in this business and I’m very proud of the work they do every day.”

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.