The Details: Coakley, Amirault, Woodward And Souza

After reading a post by Michelle Malkin that mentions the issue of an over-zealous prosecution by Martha Coakley in the Amirault case, and also following up on a link by Instapundit to a Radley Balko item, I first went digging around to see if Coakley had ever commented on the Amirault case. Coakley declined to be interviewed for Dorothy Rabinowitz's recent damning article in the WSJ dealing with Amirault.

That's when I stumbled upon an extensive cached Boston Globe article from 1999. While perhaps a glowing portrait of Coakley at the time, in hindsight, it details how Amirault was not the first ultimately flawed case that taught Martha Coakley what a high-profile, over zealously prosecuted case could do for a prosecutor's career. Enter Louise Woodward, the case of an au pair accused of shaking a baby to death. It gained international attention for Coakley and all but launched her career. But it has not held up over the years, despite serving Coakley and not justice well at the time. Oh, and she already had a PR guy in tow wherever she went way back then, too, it appears.

Coakley is the only one in the place wearing a suit - a tailored maroon jacket and thigh-high skirt - except for her PR man, who sits stiffly at her side. "The biggest problem we have in Framingham is the theft of Beanie Babies,' she (Coakley) jokes, referring to the recent discovery of a cache of stolen toys.

It is not exactly sexy stuff. And it is definitely not the kind of stuff that draws the international television cameras that zeroed in on Coakley when she prosecuted the celebrated nanny murder case, winning a conviction of 19-year-old Louise Woodward.

No one, after all, knows the benefit of exposure better than Coakley. She was a relatively anonymous assistant prosecutor in the Middlesex office until the media explosion that engulfed the Woodward case slapped her into the red plush armchair of the Today Show and onto television screens around the world. One year later, at 46, she holds the top prosecutor's job in the state's largest county, is the first woman to be elected outright to a DA's post in the state (the only other female DA was initially appointed to fill an empty seat), and is easily mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general, for lieutenant governor, perhaps even for governor. With her closet of red power suits and her white Miata, not to mention a canny combatant's mind, why not the US Congress?

Coakley was certainly proud of herself while basking in the media glow.

"I felt I could die happy as a prosecutor at that stage,' Coakley recalls.

It's what happened after she finished taking her bows that's most troubling of all. 

Woodward's legal team filed post-conviction motions to the trial court, and the hearing opened on 4 November. In the days following the verdict it emerged that the jury had been split about the murder charge, but those who had favoured an acquittal were persuaded to accept a conviction. This fact was of no legal consequence, however. None of the jury "thought she tried to murder him," one member said.

On 10 November, at a post-conviction relief hearing, Judge Hiller B. Zobel reduced the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, stating that "the circumstances in which the defendant acted were characterised by confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice in the legal sense supporting a conviction for second-degree murder," adding: "I am morally certain that allowing this defendant on this evidence to remain convicted of second-degree murder would be a miscarriage of justice".

Woodward's sentence was reduced to time served (279 days) and she was freed.

And then it gets worse. 

In 2007, Dr Patrick Barnes, the prosecution's star medical witness, reversed his opinion: he concluded that death could have been caused by an old injury, as argued by the defense. In a scientific paper he states: "The science we have today could, in fact, have exonerated Louise. There is certainly, in retrospect, reasonable doubt."

See the Rape of the Souza Family for instance. The alleged rapist in that item is Martha Coakley, not the family that was destroyed. For Coakley, it was yet another notch in her belt and claim to fame. Sadly, there does seem to be something of a disturbing pattern here.

If you read the entire Globe item and the links above, a portrait emerges of Martha Coakley as an overly-zealous prosecutor who very early on learned the career value of a high-profile case. Every time her career landed her somewhere without access to "the action" and the camera's glare, she quickly changed directions to get back in the spotlight, again. 

Then, finding herself where she didn't even want to be, prosecuting child abuse cases, she quickly found precisely the types of cases to keep her visible, moving her ever forward in her career and bringing her fame. Unfortunately for Coakley, many damning questions, along with incredible damage to apparently innocent individuals, also rests in her wake. And it's there in so many cases, one wonders if it isn't something more than coincidence.

Coakley, who took over the Middlesex child abuse unit in 1991, did not want the job. Partly because they were complex, specialized cases, and partly because she did not want "to start at the bottom again' in an area in which she had virtually no experience. But in the end, her five years in the position would be a defining theme of her career. During that time, she prosecuted some of the county's highest profile cases, their names blasted on the nightly news: the Rev. Paul Manning, a Woburn priest acquitted of sexually assaulting an altar boy. Corby and Nancy Adkinson, sentenced in 1997 to 45 and 35 years, respectively, for drugging and raping their four young sons. Then there were Ray and Shirley Souza, the Lowell grandparents whose 1993 conviction on charges of raping their grandchildren became the subject of a fierce national debate over recovered memories and landed them on the cover of Newsweek and on national TV.

Although nationally several high-profile convictions for sexual abuse have since been overturned, blamed both on overzealous prosecutors and flawed techniques for interviewing children, professional opinion remains divided over how much of what children say can be believed. Coakley bristles at the notion that frenzy over child abuse led to unjust convictions. Rather, she says, the reversals of some convictions stem from procedural issues unique to each case and should not be lumped together.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews.

Comments

[Rev. Dr. E. Buzz Miller]

She sounds just like a typical liberal, absolutely no morals or philosophy of life and freedom.

A damaged person, like Bill, Billary, Janet, Barry, Michelle, Barney...

[mike191]

Her and Nifong must be related.

[David McCourt]

Here is a letter of mine the Wall Street Journal published in response to a letter from Coakley regarding Gerald Amirault:

'A Textbook Case of Hysterical Prosecution'

WSJ, June 29, 2004:

Middlesex (Mass.) District Attorney Martha Coakley magnanimously allows that her office will not bring a civil commitment proceeding seeking to keep Gerald Amirault in jail beyond the 17 years confinement he already has endured following the notorious "child molestation" convictions of the Amirault family in 1986 (Letters to the Editor, June 25).

Rather than expressing even a particle of doubt about the justice of Mr. Amirault's conviction and imprisonment, Ms. Coakley states that Mr. Amirault's actual guilt or innocence has "no place" in her decision, which, she states, was based solely on "insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Amirault is likely to re-offend."

Ms. Coakley would have us believe that prosecutors have no discretion at all, but are simply clerks filling out forms; in this she is far too modest.

What is obvious to anyone who has been awake these past 20 years is that Gerald Amirault is not "likely to re-offend" because he never offended in the first place, but was unjustly convicted in what now universally is regarded as a textbook case of an hysterical prosecution on the basis of concocted evidence. It is for this reason that Mr. Amirault never admitted his "guilt," though that might have bought him release years ago. That disgraceful prosecution, and the subsequent efforts, sadly successful, of the district attorney's office to keep the Amiraults in jail despite the efforts of three trial judges, have blackened the reputation of Massachusetts justice throughout the nation.

That the Massachusetts prosecutors were abetted by the cravenness and political cowardice of then Gov. Jane Swift, who overruled the pardon board's recommendation that Mr. Amirault be released, and by the intellectual and moral cowardice of Associate Justice Charles Fried and his colleagues on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, who refused to employ their legal skills to see that an obvious wrong be corrected, does not diminish the culpability of Ms. Coakley and her fellow prosecutors.

Now, as an innocent man is freed to pick up the pieces of a broken life, Ms. Coakley adds insult to injury by refusing to acknowledge even the possibility that a mistake might have been made. Mr. Amirault does not "offend"; what offends is the fact that people such as Ms. Coakley and her colleagues still control the machinery of "justice" in Massachusetts.

David R. McCourt

Chicago

Coakley's letter:

WSJ, June 25, 2004:

In her May 28 editorial-page commentary "Homecoming," Dorothy Rabinowitz suggests that the Middlesex District Attorney's Office did not have the "inclination" to move for Mr. Amirault's civil commitment as a sexually dangerous person because it did not want to retry the case in its entirety. In fact, our recent decision not to file a petition for the civil commitment of Mr. Amirault as a sexually dangerous person is unrelated to his guilt or innocence of the allegations in l986. The court proceedings in a potential "civil commitment" trial are meant to determine only whether a convicted sex offender, if released from incarceration, is likely to re-offend. In fact, contrary to Ms. Rabinowitz's assertion, there is no place in such a proceeding to "retry" the original evidence in the case. In Mr. Amirault's case, based upon a number of factors, including expert opinion, we believed there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Amirault is likely to re-offend.

Martha Coakley

Middlesex District Attorney

[Joe]

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. "I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."

Justice? Pray it is so.

[Joe]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Massachusetts-Bottom-has-fallen-out-of-Coakleys-poll-numbers-Dems-prepare-to-explain-defeat-protect-Obama-81681862.html

Linkies.

[Fen]

With all the shenanigans from the Lefty congress-critters have pulled to get this bill passed, I expect massive fraud on Tuesday.

This is their chance to lock-in party majority for several decades - don't think they won't go beyond their usual tricks to secure a win.

The cheating will be audacious and blatant. They won't care if they get caught.

[Hyphenated American]

The Massachusetts race proves once again that Obama is a wonderful president, even better than Carter. He promised to fundamentally change America – and he is achieving just that. This country is changing – from a center-right country to a solid right country. Excellent news. Finally, America is becoming more progressive.

And this is what I predicted back in November 2008. Thank you, Obama.
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-can-live-with-obama_02.html

[Georg Felis]

The phases of Democrat Defeat
1) “The Republican is not a threat, this is a Blue seat.”
2) “The Republican popularity is strictly with the far-right wing wackos, there are not enough of them voting to matter.”
3) “The Repug is close, but we still have tons and tons of slime to use on him, plus calling him names and making up stuff. Have the DNC send over a couple mil and some of their best thugs.”
4) “Behind? We can’t be behind! Dig up the graveyards, start up the ballot printing presses, bring out Acorn, twist arms at the newspapers, lie like a rug!”
5) “Lost? Protest and sue, slip in new ballots, have ballots ‘discovered’, recount, scream discrimination, punch out chads, disqualify military absentee ballots.”
6) “Obviously blame must be laid at the feet of ______ (anybody but me)”

Let us hope this election goes to 6. Blame spreading is the most fun part of the electoral season. :)

[David Gillies]

I predict a narrow Coakley win. Even if Brown wins by a few points, the Democratic machine will defraud people. There'd have to be a blowout (like 15-20%) to put it beyond the scope of fraud, and that ain't gonna happen.

(And yes, if I'm proven to be wrong, I'll eat my words, gladly.)

[marybel]

After reading the Rabinowitz WSJ article about the Amirault case, I am hoping more than ever that Coakley is brought to not just defeat, but to a humiliating defeat.

I was for many years a mental health practitioner near Manhattan Beach, California, the scene of the now infamous McMartin Preschool case. Since I was familiar with some of the "sites" where abuse was alleged to occur, I never "believed the (incredibly suggestible) children." (A popular bumpersticker during the McMartin era was..."believe the children!") One church in particular was an impossible locale for the abuse accredited to the site...this church it is open to the public every day, and sprays of chicken blood would undoubtedly have drawn notice.

The Amiraults and the Buckeys (McMartin case) were accused in 1983 and 1984 respectively. Even with all the media circus, McMartin was completely resolved by 1990. Justice was served in CA and Raymond Buckey was rightly acquitted and set free. Not so for Gerald Ameriault, who would not be parolled until 2004.

Even accounting for the unprecedented child abuse scare at the time, what happened to the Amiraults, just in sheer excess prosecutorial vigor, was a huge miscarriage of justice.

Even more than I would love to see Obamacare stopped in its tracks, I would relish a loss to the ambitious and pernicious Martha Coakley.

[JorgXMcKie]

Coakley obviously belongs in jail, not the US Senate.

[ms. docweasel]

Wow, I remember that Louise Brown case, it was quite the sensation at the time. I'd have never connected Coakley with it. Good old Google, it never forgets!

[Amirault was guilty]

There were physical findings of child abuse in the Amirault case. The children exhibited extremely sexualized behavior after the abuse. There were strong symptoms indicative of trauma in the children, including regressive behavior, pain in their genital areas and fearfulness. The children as adults have continued to state they were abused by Amirault. A one-sided attack on the Amirault victims helps no one, especially abused children.

Mass. Victims Fight Commutation Plea By Leslie Miller, Associated Press Writer 8/7/01
Phaedra Hopkins, 20, said at an emotional news conference. “So many times, Mr. Amirault hovered over me, touched me and hurt me and committed many disgusting acts of abuse.” Those children, now adults, stood by their testimony Thursday.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010807011330/http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010802/us/preschool_abuse_3.html

“All nine children testified in a broadly consistent way…The children testified to numerous instances of sexual abuse."
"The Commonwealth also presented a pediatric gynecologist and pediatrician who examined five of the girls who testified…She made findings consistent with abuse in four of the girls.”
http://abusearticles.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/common-vs-amirault-424-mass-618-page-624.jpg

[Amirault was guilty]

Letters to the Editor: The Real Darkness Is Child Abuse WALL STREET JOURNAL (J) 02/24/95
The three Amiraults — Gerald, Violet and Cheryl – were convicted after two trials before different judges and juries almost one year apart. They were represented by able and well-known defense counsel. The convictions were upheld after review by state and federal appellate courts....
in Amirault, the majority of the female children who testified had some relevant physical findings, as did several female children involved in the investigation who did not participate in the trial.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010719201703/http://www.vocal-nasvo.org/hardoon.htm

Witness praises Amirault decision By John Ellement, Globe Staff, 2/23/2002 CAMBRIDGE – Jen Bennett wants to give Acting Governor Jane Swift a bear hug in appreciation, and she wants Gerald Amirault to admit he sexually abused her when she attended the Fells Acres Day Care Center in Malden in the 1980s....He said Amirault supporters are focusing on 2 percent of the children’s claims that ‘’seem inexplicable and they are conveniently ignoring the 98 percent of the case that was overwhelming” against Amirault." http://web.archive.org/web/20020224045327/http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/metro/Witness_praises_Amirault_decision+.shtml

Swift won’t free Tooky by David R. Guarino and Elisabeth J. Beardsley Wednesday, February 20, 2002 ``She carefully analyzed every bit of information generated through the investigation and came to her decision that the verdict was just and the sentence was appropriate."
http://web.archive.org/web/20020305205020/http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/swif02202002.htm

[McMartin case information]

A poster above mentions the McMartin case. This case had many hung juries. The jurors believed the children were abused. Tunnels were found that corroborated the children's stories. There was physical evidence the children were abused.

Reporter’s Notebook: 6 Months of California Case By Robert Lindsey Published: February 13, 1985 “Prosecutors say they intend to present as witnesses 41 former pupils of the school, almost all of whom, physicians testified at the hearing, showed physical evidence of having been sexually abused. http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/13/us/reporter-s-notebook-6-months-of-california-case.html

McMartin Preschool Case – What Really Happened and the Coverup
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/mcmartin-preschool-case-what-really-happened-and-the-coverup/

At the press conference following the trial, 9 of the 11 jurors who agreed to be interviewed indicated that they believed the children had been molested, but they felt that the evidence presented did not enable them to state beyond a reasonable doubt who had perpetrated the abuse.” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1990 “Tapes of Children Decided the Case for Most Jurors” Tracy Wilkinson and James Rainey

Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool Site, Manhattan Beach, California
http://web.archive.org/web/20010123212200/members.cruzio.com/~ratf/McMartin.html/
The project unearthed not one but two tunnel complexes as well as previously unrecognized structural features which defied logical explanation. Both tunnel complexes conformed to locations and functional descriptions established by children’s reports.

Summit, R.C. (1994). “The Dark Tunnels of McMartin” Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4): 397-416.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/the-dark-tunnels-of-mcmartin-dr-roland-c-summit-journal-of-psychohistory/

[David McCourt]

The poster "Amirault is Guilty" is spreading inaccurate information when he states that there was physical evidence of child abuse. Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly, in a 1999 editorial, disagreed, saying: “the Amirault indictments were based entirely on child testimony. There was no physical evidence, other than some ambiguous medical testimony regarding relatively minor injuries to a few of the children.” Judge Borenstein, in his decision granting Cheryl Amirault Lefave a new trial, also disagreed:

"[T]there is no credible, independent behavioral or physical evidence corroborating the children's testimony. . . . Physical evidence in this case is almost non-existent and at most inconclusive on the question of whether these children were sexually abused. With the exception of one child, the minimal amount of physical evidence in this case was reported only months after the allegations surfaced. Even that child had similar physical symptoms before she ever enrolled at FADS; the one physical symptom seen in this child was inconclusive, according to her own doctor and the Commonwealth's witnesses.”

[Amirault was guilty]

An editorial in Mass Lawyer's Weekly is only one opinion on the case. There are many others. Rape crimes, especially over time, often do not leave any physical evidence on the victim. Yet, in this case there were physical findings of abuse that several doctors testified to in court. There is independent behavioral evidence, so the editorial is wrong there. As in many cases, any physical evidence would have been destroyed by the defendants, so the courts primarily went on eye witness testimony and behavioral and physical findings.

COMMONWEALTH vs. GERALD AMIRAULT. 404 Mass. 221 December 6, 1988 - March 6, 1989
"The parents of the child witnesses testified about their children's behavior while, or shortly after, attending Fells Acres. The children complained and cried about the school; they complained of stomachaches, headaches, pain in their genital areas, and bowel problems. They began bedwetting, lost their appetites, had nightmares, used baby talk, became fearful of lights, of men, and of being left alone. The children also displayed sexually explicit behavior; some began masturbating. Two of the boys tried to stick their tongues into their mothers' mouths."

COMMONWEALTH vs. VIOLET AMIRAULT (and eleven companion cases [Note 1]). COMMONWEALTH vs. GERALD AMIRAULT. 424 Mass. 618 October 9, 1996 - March 24, 1997
The Commonwealth also presented a pediatric gynecologist and pediatrician who examined five of the girls who testified against Gerald. She made findings consistent with abuse in four of the girls....The parents of several children testified that their children developed pronounced sexual behavior and regressed to infantile behaviors such as bedwetting and baby talk. The same child psychiatrist who appeared at Gerald's trial testified that these behaviors were commonly indicative of sexual abuse.

[Cheryl Thomson]

The vicious prosecution of Louise Woodward by Martha Coakley in 1997 provided this ambitious Liberal=Fascist with the platform to start building her political career. Look for Obama to appoint her to a high Washington post, perhaps even Attorney-General, as a consolation prize after Coakley loses big to Brown tomorrow. Yes, America - we need another Janet Reno. Where will be the next WACO? I suggest you Google that other infamous 'old' case also, and you will discover more than you bargain for... such as who really started the fire, the shooting, etc. Perhaps you'd be interested to know how many of the survivors of that siege, who were never legitimately found guilty of any crime, are still in prison. Weep for America. Weep for Haiti, as we plow those new survivors under our tanks.

[Joan McDonald]

I'm a progressive from Massachusetts. I have never like Martha Coakley, for all the reason that have been stated above. But what confuses me is, if you guys had lived here during that time you would have agreed with Martha. "Hang,'m high" I think it is ironic that you now feel she was overzealous. I thought only liberal progressives like myself were soft on crime.

[two sides]

I am a progressive too and have never been soft on crime. I always believed that society needs to be protected from criminals and child molesters. In this case, there are two sides and both should be looked at. Anyone one of the Attorney Generals could have overridden this case, but all saw enough evidence to not do so.