No compass to Coakley

Article 11-30-09

Martha Coakley lacks conviction

by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009

Does Attorney General Martha Coakley really believe in “magic rooms”? And if she does, should Bay Staters believe in her?

I realize it’s now gauche to bring up a candidate’s resume and experience. So what if we’re sending an untested leader to Washington to face war and recession? It’s not like they’re going to do something really stupid - like spend millions to “save or create” nonexistent jobs in fictional congressional districts, or give the 9/11 terrorists a trial with all the rights of U.S. citizens.

Right, Mr. President?

Still, I’m old fashioned on these matters, so I spent a few hours reviewing Coakley’s list of legislative and leadership accomplishments. Remember the pamphlet “Great Jewish Sports Legends” from the movie “Airplane”? It’s about that long.

And I ran into a name I hadn’t heard in awhile: Amirault.

The current controversy is over Coakley’s mishandling of the Rev. John Geoghan case. But her fight to keep the Amiraults in jail shows something worse than bad judgment - it shows she’s willing to put party loyalty over people’s lives.

If you lived in Massachusetts in the ’80s, you remember the case. A grandmother and her two adult children who ran a day care were convicted of sexually assaulting very young children. The accusations were incredible in every sense of the word. As Dorothy Rabinowitz recounted in The Wall Street Journal:

“Children had supposedly been raped with knives - which miraculously failed to leave any signs of wounding or other injury - and been assaulted by a clown in a ‘magic room.’ Some children told - after interrogations by investigators - of being forced to drink urine, of watching the Amiraults slaughter blue birds, of meeting robots with flashing lights . . a child also testified he was tied naked to a tree in the schoolyard, in front of all the teachers and children, while ‘Miss Cheryl’ cut the leg off a squirrel.”

Uh-huh. Naked kids and squirrel mutilation in front of an audience, but then-Middlesex District Attorney Scott Harshbarger couldn’t find one witness. There was also no DNA evidence nor a motive. Lead prosecutor Lawrence Hardoon suggested child pornography, but nobody could find even one photo.

Hardoon’s answer: “Just because no evidence of photographs was found doesn’t mean that there were none.”

The Amirault case today is almost universally viewed as a a blot on the Massachusetts legal system. Almost. One holdout is Coakley.

In a statement to Blue Mass Group, Coakley said “I believe the conviction was sound and [Gerald Amirault] received a fair trial.”

Succeeding Harshbarger as district attorney, Coakley went even further. In 2001 when the parole board voted 5-0 to release Gerald Amirault, in part due to “the real and substantial doubt,” about his guilt, Coakley opposed it. In an unusual parole agreement with Coakley, Gerald’s sister Cheryl had to stop all challenges to her conviction and was banned from giving TV interviews.

What little courage it would have taken for Coakley to admit the error of the district attorney’s office. But she claims to believe in magic rape rooms and secret clowns.

Why? Because Coakley’s biggest resume item (other then her gender) is her party loyalty. Whether she’s protecting her fellow courthouse cronies, or letting the big fish wiggle off the Big Dig hook, Coakley is always carrying water for the Democratic establishment.

All she’s going to do if you send her to Washington is get a bigger bucket.