Opinion of Martha Coakley

[tpfkaw]

Objectively (for non-political reasons) a horrible person. To quote myself:

My vote is more about how Martha Coakley is a truly evil - and I do not use the term lightly - person than anything else (although I do like Baker). Dorothy Rabinowitz provides a short summary of her 1990s-early 2000s reporting on the Fells Acres Day Care/Amirault family case here.

The long and short of it is that during the "Satanic ritual abuse"/hypnosis/"recovered memory" hysteria, in 1986, the Amirault family, proprietors of Fells Acres Day Care, were alleged by "recovered memory" specialists to have repeatedly sodomized children with assorted sharp household implements (healing the wounds with their supernatural Satanist powers), while in a "magic room" of the day care that didn't exist, while dressed in clown suits, while sacrificing animals.

The elderly matriarch, Violet, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison, as was her daughter Cheryl, while son Gerald was sentenced to 40. By the 1990s, thanks in large part to Rabinowitz's reporting, it was obvious to anyone that the Amiraults were innocent, including the Massachusetts Parole Board (which is one of the least lenient in the country). However, Coakley used her position as Middlesex District Attorney to prevent the Amiraults' release; Violet died in prison, while she managed to prevent Cheryl's release until 1999 and Gerald's until 2004, simply because Coakley thought it would be politically advantageous to her. (When Cheryl and Gerald were finally paroled, Coakley applied the condition that they be forbidden from speaking publicly about the case!)

This isn't a isolated incident, either, when Kenny Waters was proven not to have committed the murder he was accused of, Coakley fought tooth and nail to prevent his release. There was a movie made about the case, Conviction, starring Hillary Swank; suffice it to say that it, rightly, does not put Martha Coakley in a positive light.

[tpfkaw]

I realise that this is a long shot, but maybe the fact that she's an evil c**nt* is one of the reasons for her unpopularity (as well as her (lack of) campaigning skills).

*Of course her being a Democrat makes that irrelevant to certain people.

It's difficult to say how many people are aware of her role in the Fells Acres and Kenny Waters cases; there hasn't been any polling. I'd guesstimate it at maybe 20% of active voters, but of those 20% most are probably Republican-leaning to begin with. It's probably worth 2-3 points at the margin.

Of course, Baker could never use it as a campaign issue because it's impossible to explain in a soundbite and very easy for Coakley to demagogue: "Why is Charlie Baker defending convicted child rapists? I've always been fighting for the child victims."

[tpfkaw]

I realise that this is a long shot, but maybe the fact that she's an evil c**nt* is one of the reasons for her unpopularity (as well as her (lack of) campaigning skills).

*Of course her being a Democrat makes that irrelevant to certain people.

Except she was still despised here (and elsewhere) long before anyone was talking about her involvement in this particular case, so that logic doesn't really work.

What exactly is Coakley's side of the story in all this? I'm not going to take the word of an Atlas poster who cited no sources (besides a WSJ hit piece written 5 days before the 2010 special election...what a coincidence!) as fact. Maybe Coakley really is a horrible person, but I'd like to hear her side of the story before indicting her. If it doesn't satisfy me, maybe I will change my mind and support Baker.

lol, Dorothy Rabinowitz has been writing about the Fells Acres case since the 90s (for her reporting on the case, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001); that piece was just a very brief summary of her earlier work (it being rather relevant given that Martha Coakley was back in the news).

[tpfkaw]

Then why not publish it as soon as Coakley entered the race? Or as soon as she won the Democratic primary? Why only do so after Brown's momentum was already readily apparent? It reeks of opportunism, particularly coming from the WSJ.

The WSJ is a national newspaper, not a Massachusetts newspaper. It reports on Massachusetts politics only when they are of national interest.

But yes, they presumably intended that piece to have a partisan impact in much the same way as the AP sat on the Bush DUI story until the weekend before the 2000 election. Difference being that, instead of withholding relevant information until it could have maximum partisan impact, the WSJ was merely reminding readers of its decade-spanning, Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles about Fells Acres, one of whose central characters had of late also become a national political figure.

Of course, deliberately keeping innocent people in prison and tarred as child rapists involves a level of extreme moral turpitude that many would consider to disqualify a person from seeking public office. So, it's a perfectly relevant thing for them to have brought up, and not only that but they ought to have brought it up. Nevertheless, as you yourself say, the WSJ's motivations are irrelevant; what matters are the facts.

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The "mass public hysteria surrounding the case" was during the 80s. By the late 90s-mid 00s, when Coakley involved herself in it, public opinion had actually swung in the other direction, thanks to Dorothy Rabinowitz's reporting. By that point it was well-known and obvious to anyone familiar with the facts of the case that the Amiraults were innocent, and yet Coakley had her office repeatedly fight parole for the Amiraults, and, when despite her efforts the parole board unanimously recommended the release of Gerald, she took the extraordinary step of (successfully) lobbying the governor to block his release.

Coakley could have done absolutely nothing - simply ignored the case. But no, she went out of her way to deliberately keep innocent people in prison.

Scott Harshbarger, who was the Middlesex County DA during the initial prosecution, and Jane Swift, who blocked Gerald's release, share in the blame. But at least they have excuses. In Harshbarger's case, during the mid-80s there really was a mass public hysteria, and his office may well have believed its own crap about "recovered memories" and supernatural Satanist powers. In Swift's case, she was acting under a formal recommendation from Coakley. Coakley has no excuse for acting in the way she did. And, Harshbarger and Swift are not currently running for office. (Their gubernatorial campaigns in 1998 and 2002 were both unsuccessful in part because of their actions related to the Fells Acres case).

We also have the case of Kenny Waters; after it was proven that he could not possibly have committed the murder he was imprisoned for, Coakley fought tooth and nail and used every delaying tactic in the book to prevent his release. It's a pattern of extremely disturbing behavior on her part.

[tpfkaw]

Have any of the accusers involved in the prosecution recanted? If not, why wouldn't they? What motive would they still have to maintain that the child abuse happened? Embarrassment?

To my knowledge, none (who have come forward publicly) have recanted. None of the accusers in the similar McMartin preschool trial have recanted either. Post "Satanic ritual abuse" hysteria, it's become well-established nowadays in the psychological and legal professions that so-called "recovered memory" charlatans in fact practice memory implantation. The accusers were especially vulnerable to memory implantation, as they were 3 or 4 years old at the time of the alleged abuse.