Daniel F. Conley
District Attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts
In office
2002–2018
Appointed byJane Swift
Preceded byRalph C. Martin II
Succeeded byJohn P. Pappas
Member of the Boston City Council
from the 5th district
In office
1994–2002
Preceded byTom Menino
Succeeded byRobert Consalvo
Personal details
Political partyDemocratic
EducationStonehill College (BA)
Suffolk University (JD)

Daniel F. Conley is an American attorney and politician who served as the district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts from 2002 to 2018. Appointed to the office in February 2002, Conley was later elected on November 5, 2002, and again in 2006, 2010, and 2014.[1] He retired in 2018 to enter private practice.[2]

Conley placed fourth of 12 candidates when he ran unsuccessfully in the 2013 Boston mayoral election to replace Thomas Menino, garnering 11% of the vote in the preliminary election. In February 2018, Boston newspapers reported that Conley would not seek re-election to a fifth term as Suffolk DA.[3][4] On September 12, 2018, Conley announced that his final day as district attorney would be September 26, as he would join Mintz Levin, a private law firm in a special counsel role.[5]

Education

Conley graduated from Stonehill College, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1980 and Suffolk University Law School in 1983.

Career

He was appointed as an assistant district attorney by Suffolk County District Attorney Newman A. Flanagan shortly after passing the Massachusetts Bar Exam and assigned to the Boston Municipal Court. He later prosecuted juvenile cases in the Boston Juvenile Court.

In 1987, he was promoted to a Superior Court Trial Unit Suffolk Superior Court, where he prosecuted felony cases. He was assigned by District Attorney Newman Flanagan to Boston's new Anti-gang Violence Task Force. In 1987 he was promoted to a Superior Court Trial Unit Suffolk Superior Court where he prosecuted felony cases. When gang violence reached near epidemic levels in Boston during the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was assigned by District Attorney Newman Flanagan to Boston's newAnti-gang Violence Task Force. In 1992 he moved to the Homicide Unit of the D.A.'s office. Conley was an assistant district attorney for a total of nine years.[6][7]

Boston City Council

In 1993, he left the Suffolk District Attorney's office to run for a seat on the Boston City Council. Constituents elected him to the District 5 seat, where he served for eight years and served several terms as chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee. He received the O'Riordan-Mundy Distinguished Legal Service Award in 1999 and remained on the council until he was appointed Suffolk County's 14th district attorney by Acting Governor Jane Swift on February 19, 2002. Conley won election to the office later that year.

District attorney

In 2004, Conley and the then-Commissioner of the Boston Police Department empaneled a blue-ribbon task force to evaluate the ways in which police gather and prosecutors use eyewitness evidence. In an effort to ensure that the historical wrongful convictions that came to light under his leadership never reoccurred, Conley assigned his top courtroom prosecutor to join with ranking police officials, prominent defense attorneys, and the nation's leading academic expert on eyewitness identification to review the investigative processes by which eyewitness evidence was gathered and recommend changes that would minimize the likelihood of faulty identifications.[8]

The panel returned with reforms that were implemented by area law enforcement. The reforms prompted defense attorney Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project[9] to cite Boston and Suffolk County as being "at the forefront of the country" [10] in averting wrongful convictions, and eyewitness evidence expert Gary Wells to call them the "Gold Standard."[11] "The policies he implemented [...] went beyond what even the US Department of Justice had been recommending and provided a model not only for law enforcement but for the Supreme Judicial Court as well," the Boston Bar Association wrote.[12]

From left: Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino, Boston City Council member Robert Consalvo, and Conley in 2009

Shortly after taking office, Conley implemented a policy of assenting to any reasonable request for post-conviction testing of DNA evidence that was unavailable at the time of a defendant's trial. In 2011, Conley voiced his support, with additional recommendations, for legislation that would expand that voluntary policy statewide. "[T]his legislation codifies many of the practices that I voluntarily put in place six or seven years ago," Conley wrote to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. "These are good practices that serve the interest of justice."[13] In 2012, Conley formalized earlier wrongful conviction review efforts in Massachusetts first Conviction Integrity Program,[14] which provides "a roadmap" to other offices seeking to undertake similar efforts.[15]

Under Conley's stewardship, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office partnered with numerous service providers, government agencies, and victim advocacy groups to build the Family Justice Center of Boston.[16] The FJCB streamlines services for victims of child abuse, intimate partner violence, and sexual crimes by coordinating the responses of numerous agencies and providers – including police, prosecutors, social workers, and others – under one roof. The burdens on victims are reduced while efforts to hold their abusers accountable under the law are enhanced.

Also operating out of the FJCB is Support to End Exploitation Now (SEEN), a multi-agency task force directed by members of Conley's office that has twice been named one of the Top 50 Innovative Government Projects by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation.[17][18]

Massachusetts is one of only four states (along with the District of Columbia) that have no continuing legal education requirement for the prosecutors. To address this Conley imposed a "continuing legal education requirement for Suffolk prosecutors, which allows them to continue honing their skills and exposes them to emerging fields of criminal law".[19]

In 2017, Conley launched the Juvenile Alternative Resolution pilot program for "young people who faced serious charges or may have had an earlier brush with the law."[20] A year later, he expanded the program to double its capacity.

In February 2018, Conley announced that he would not be seeking reelection in the Fall. According to a statement, he intended to finish his term but was stepping aside to "give others the same opportunity" that he enjoyed as a political leader.[21] Yet with his departure occurring as lawmakers were considering an overhaul to the criminal justice system that would reduce the number of people incarcerated,[21] Conley surprised political observers on September 12, when he announced that he would be resigning, with three months left of his term, to take a job at Mintz Levin, a leading law firm in Boston, and at its lobbying subsidiary, ML Strategies. [22] This decision arrived shortly after Greg Henning, who Conley had endorsed as the Democratic candidate for District Attorney, lost the election to Rachael Rollins. As a result, Governor Baker appointed Assistant District Attorney John Pappas as the interim Suffolk County District Attorney.[23]

2013 mayoral election

Supporters campaigning for Conley's mayoral bid

In April 2013, Conley announced that he was running in the 2013 Boston mayoral election. He entered the field as the best-financed candidate at the time,[24] but placed fourth in a twelve candidate field winning 11.3% of the vote in the preliminary. Although losing the election, Conley remained in his position as District Attorney.

Personal life

Conley resides in Boston.

References

  1. ↑ "PD43+ » Search Elections". PD43+. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  2. ↑ "Pappas sworn in as Suffolk DA - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Archived from the original on 2018-09-27. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  3. ↑ Stout, Matt (February 20, 2018). "DA Conley won't seek re-election". Boston Herald. Archived from the original on February 21, 2018. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Suffolk DA Dan Conley won't seek reelection". The Boston Globe. February 20, 2018. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  5. ↑ MacNeill, Arianna (September 12, 2018). "Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley announces he's resigning later this month". Boston.com. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
  6. ↑ Braga, Anthony (March 2003). "Serious Youth Gun Offenders and the Epidemic of Youth Violence in Boston". Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 19: 33–54. doi:10.1023/A:1022566628159. S2CID 142004448. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  7. ↑ Kennedy, David M., Anthony A. Braga, Anne M. Piehl (2001). Reducing Gun Violence: The Boston Gun Project's Operation Ceasefire (PDF) (Report).{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2010-02-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ↑ "The Innocence Project - About Us: Bio:Barry C. Scheck & Peter J. Neufeld". Archived from the original on 2007-07-15. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
  10. ↑ http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~glwells/Boston_Globe_July_2004.pdf
  11. ↑ http://www.newenglandinnocence.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Eyewitness-Identification-Reform-in-Massachusetts-by-Stanley-Z.-Fisher.pdf%5B%5D
  12. ↑ DiTullio, Lauren. "Statement of the Boston Bar Association on Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley". bostonbar.org. Archived from the original on 5 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  13. ↑ http://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/innocence-project/docs/S.753-letter-from-DA-Conley.pdf
  14. ↑ Cameron, David (14 Aug 2018). "As with Clay case, DA Conley has made strides against wrongful convictions". Boston Globe. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  15. ↑ Olson, Kris (8 June 2017). "'Conviction integrity units' eyed as tool in reform push". Mass Lawyers Weekly. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  16. ↑ "Family Justice Center".
  17. ↑ http://ash.harvard.edu/ash/04.15.08_Top50_FINAL.pdf%5B%5D
  18. ↑ "Harvard institute hails six innovative government programs in Mass". boston.com. April 15, 2008. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008.
  19. ↑ Staff, Journal (30 December 2014). "Suffolk DA Conley Holds Course in Cutting-Edge Interview Techniques". Revere Journal. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  20. ↑ Crimaldi, Laura. "Suffolk DA expands second-chance program for youthful offenders". No. 20 March 2018. Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 5 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  21. 1 2 Metzger, Andy (20 February 2018). "After 16 Years As Suffolk DA, Dan Conley Won't Seek Re-Election". WBUR-FM. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  22. ↑ Anderson, Travis (2018-09-12). "Suffolk DA Conley to step down later this month". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  23. ↑ Tempera, Jacqueline (2018-09-25). "Assistant District Attorney John P. Pappas to serve as interim Suffolk County District Attorney". The Republican. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  24. ↑ Andrew Ryan; John R. Ellement (3 April 2013). "Suffolk DA Daniel F. Conley joins race to succeed Thomas M. Menino as mayor of Boston". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
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