DA Conley Thanks Public, Staff While Announcing Sept. 26 Departure

BOSTON, Sept. 12, 2018—Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley today announced that he will step down at the end of the month after four full terms in office and 34 years of public service as a line prosecutor, city councilor, and chief law enforcement officer for Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop.

Conley, who led a period of unprecedented innovation and improvement in the Suffolk DA’s office before announcing in February that he would not seek re-election, will leave office for private practice. A gubernatorial appointee will serve out the remaining three months of his term. He delivered the following remarks at a press conference this afternoon:

“Good afternoon. As you know, I’m Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, and with me is Steve Tocco of Mintz Levin / ML Strategies here in Boston.

“Earlier today, I informed Governor Baker that I will resign as Suffolk County District Attorney, effective at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, September 26th. I expect that the Governor will appoint a successor to serve out the remaining three months of my term before I leave office.

“As I told many of you when I announced that I wouldn’t seek a fifth term, there are still professional opportunities and challenges that I’d like to pursue in my legal career. So I was honored when Bob Popeo, Chairman of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris & Popeo, and Steve Tocco, President & CEO of ML Strategies, offered me the tremendous opportunity to join their prestigious organization.

“As a Special Counsel for Mintz Levin assigned to the Litigation Section, I’ll be going back to the hands-on practice of law that first inspired me; and as Senior Advisor for ML Strategies, I hope to draw on my 25 years of experience as a Boston City Councilor and District Attorney to focus on the government and policy matters that drew me to public office so many years ago.

“Because this may well be my last press conference as District Attorney, I’d like to ask your indulgence for a few minutes as I share some thoughts on these last 16 years.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with some of the most dedicated men and women in public safety, government, social services, and the law during 34 years in public service. And thanks to these partnerships, Boston and Suffolk County bear almost no resemblance to what they were when I was first sworn in as an Assistant District Attorney in 1984. In fact, they’re dramatically different even from when I took office as DA in 2002. They’re growing and thriving because they’re safer, and they’re safer because our criminal justice system is more accurate, more effective, and more fair than ever before.
“We’ve tackled wrongful convictions with policies on eyewitness evidence and post-conviction DNA testing that were years ahead of their time – and became models for our judiciary and legislature.

“We built a training program, unique in Massachusetts, that emphasizes ethics, integrity, and discovery compliance that meets or exceeds all state and federal guidelines. As a result, we haven’t just vacated almost a dozen wrongful convictions for homicide, sexual assault, and other violent crimes – we’ve prevented them from occurring in the first place.

“Transparency has been a core value and a management tool for us. Ten years before Ferguson became a household word, we began releasing the entire investigative file in every fatal police shooting to you, the media, so that, in addition to my independent judgment, the public had an additional layer of scrutiny and could understand exactly what happened. After 14 years, it’s still the most transparent approach anywhere in the country.

“We co-founded the Family Justice Center of Boston, streamlining services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse.

“We created a project to treat prostituted youth as victims rather than offenders that became a key component of the human trafficking law several years later.

“We drafted legislation creating the Witness Protection Fund, and in the decade that followed spent a million dollars protecting witnesses and their families.

“And we created one of the most comprehensive and ambitious juvenile diversion programs in the country, moving more young people accused of more serious offenses out of the juvenile justice system than any other we’re aware of – with a 95% success rate.

“It’s important to note that as we honed and refined the tools at our disposal, we increasingly used a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. We took a smart on crime approach and the results have been dramatic.

“Even as the population grew, violent crime in Boston fell almost 35%, and at the very same time, we reduced committed sentences at the Suffolk County House of Correction by 40%. With a population of approximately 800,000 in Suffolk County, there are today only about 450 people serving committed sentences in the House of Correction, a facility that can hold over 1,800 inmates. We cut juvenile prosecutions by almost 50%. Today, Massachusetts has the second-lowest rates of adult incarceration and juvenile commitment in the country. State prosecutors can take credit for that, and Suffolk prosecutors are leading the way.

“None of this would have been possible without outstanding partners – Mayors Walsh and Menino; Governor Baker; Boston Police Commissioners Evans, O’Toole, Davis, Evans and Gross, and all the men and women of the Boston Police Department; Police Chiefs Kyes, Guido, and Delehanty and their officers in Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop; our partners at Transit and State Police, especially Lieutenants Flaherty, Christiansen, Lannon, and Murphy of the Suffolk County Detective Unit; our Children’s Advocacy Center; Boston’s clergy and faith-based community; and far too many non-profit partners to name.

“Above all, however, none of this would have been possible without the men and women of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. They are, in my view, the best and most dedicated public servants in Massachusetts. But even with improvement to their salaries in recent years, state prosecutors remain overworked and badly underpaid. I thank the Legislature for recent steps to rectify this and will, once again, respectfully urge them to keep going. In the meantime, I would ask Boston’s legal community and you, the media, to advocate for them as well.

“I have been privileged to lead one of the most diverse and dynamic prosecution teams in the state. Remarkably, despite the relatively poor pay, our legal staff is more diverse than most private law firms and the legal community as a whole. At least 11 judges appointed by the last three governors came out of this office during my tenure, which speaks to our lawyers’ skill, experience, and professionalism. Our victim advocates have set the standard for marshaling interagency services to keep victims and witnesses safe and supported. And our civilian investigators and administrative staff work so well and so diligently alongside them that it’s no exaggeration to call them integral parts of every single case.

“Before I turn to Steve Tocco, I want to give you two examples of the kind of work these men and women do.

“The first involves an appellate prosecutor reviewing a first-degree murder conviction that was up on appeal. In the course of his work, he spotted an omission of certain trial testimony that the lawyers and the judge had all missed, and that even appellate counsel had failed to raise in his appeal.

“Our prosecutor knew full well that this could be exploited to reverse the conviction, but he brought it to the attention of the court and opposing counsel all the same. At oral arguments, the Chief Justice of the SJC opened the hearing to commend him for “acting in the highest tradition” of prosecutors and for pursuing the interests of fairness and justice, not just a conviction.

“The second example is from just last week, after a jury convicted a man of armed robbery. Displaying a knife, the defendant had forced a man with cerebral palsy to withdraw money from an ATM and stole it from him.

“At first, the victim was afraid and embarrassed to report the robbery, but when he did a whole team of people came together to help – including members of our Elders & Persons with Disabilities Unit. With their support, the victim felt comfortable enough to testify – and with that testimony the jury had the evidence it needed to convict the defendant.

“The victim’s physical disability gave him real trouble with stairs, so after the verdict the trial team headed toward the ramp outside. But as they went left, the victim went right. He wanted to take the stairs.

“‘I feel stronger today,’ he told them.

“Men and women like these, doing work like this, have raised this office to a position of national leadership. I’ll miss each one of them deeply, but I know they’ll serve the next DA well as the best and finest public servants in the Commonwealth.

“I also want to take a moment to thank all of you in the news media for the job that you do. It’s no exaggeration to say that a free and independent press has never been more important to our democracy. In the years I’ve been District Attorney, the media have been instrumental in bringing clergy sexual abuse to light; identifying wrongful convictions; and even giving a name to a murdered child known only as Baby Doe. I ask you to use the power of your position to inform the people you serve, give dignity to lives cut short, and comfort survivors in their grief.

“Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank the people of Suffolk County. Serving them has been an integral part of my life since I was 26 years old, and I have never for one moment forgotten that it was a rare and cherished privilege to do so.

“I’ve been blessed, truly blessed, to know so many of them, to pursue justice on their behalf, and to earn the trust they’ve placed in me. They’ve shown me astonishing acts of grace in the face of unspeakable loss. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, families and communities – they’ve made this the most rewarding job I could ever ask for. Many of them are still like family to me.

“The time has come for me to move on, but I’ll carry their wisdom, their kindness, and their faith with me wherever I go.”

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