Early returns are generally good
New DA gets plaudit, some criticism
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.
“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.”
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.”
