TheAgitator.com
Dorothy Rabinowitz on Martha Coakley and the Fells Acres Sex Abuse Cases
Friday, January 15th, 2010In the Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on dubious sex abuse cases, lays out Martha Coakley’s role in the notorious Fells Acres convictions.
Rabinowitz concludes:
Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was “formidable” and that she was entirely convinced “those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants.”
What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley’s concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence.
If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.
Lefty criminal justice blogger Jeralyn Merritt chimes in here, and states in an earlier post of Coakley, “I wouldn’t vote for her for dog catcher.”
My article on Coakley’s record as a prosecutor here.
Have you read about Keith Winfield?
http://www.wickedlocal.com/melrose/news/x187560836
Winfield is a cop who raped his 23 month old niece with a heated curling iron while she was in his care at his home. Coakley, who has no problem going after innocent people for child abuse, wouldn’t prosecute him.
http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/15/coakley-and-the-curling-iron-rapist-part-ii-lawyers-seeking-justice-for-rape-victims/
She left him out on the street for two years.
Just read it, it’ll make you sick.
The Big Gov site doesn’t recognize the cop angle, but I think folks around here will…
She’s another Lael Rubin. In fact, it’s pretty common for those involved in the prosecutions of the day care child abuse cases to stick by their original position. To them, the alternative is to admit they destroyed the lives of dozens of innocent people, which doesn’t look good on a prosecutors resume. It’s far better to deny, deny, deny, and say the people they prosecuted were guilty as sin, but a whiny-ass sympathetic public combined with press manipulation by the defense attorneys sabotaged an otherwise rock-solid case. In other words, they just fucking lie about it. Hey, it works for cops….
Prosecutors have been destroying innocent lives with impunity for a long time (at least since Salem…).
I wish there was a viable Libertrain third option to vote for Tuesday.
D’oh, make that Liberterian.
Why isn’t Kennedy a viable libertarian, Collin? He is getting shut out by the press and is polling low, but a better-than-expected showing for him will do good for the cause in the long run.
No sense trying to express your outrage against Coakley’s predations as a prosecutor by voting for Scott Brown. He just tries to get to the Right of Coakley on every “law and order” issue, and has not even deigned to mention Fells Acres a single time in this whole campaign.
In defense of the system in Salem, the governor returned, saw the mayhem being wrought and quickly brought it to heel IIRC.
More proof, as if we needed any, of the type of person that seeks out elected office.
Scum of the fucking Earth, every last one of them.
EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.
1. Getting to the right of Coakley on law and order issues is not possible, save for #1 above
2. Kennedy isn’t viable, period. If he’s going to pull votes off Brown, he should drop out like a gentleman
3. This is bigger than Brown and Coakley – the point of this race is to remove the democrats’ super-majority in the senate. What Brown believes is beside the point, honestly, as his vote won’t count for another 1-3 years, anyway. What matters is keeping the democrats from continuing the ruinous road that they’re now on. (don’t bother with “republicans” are no better. They’ve screwed up royally, but nothing like this)
4. As I’ve said in other posts, I’m a “law and order” type, too. I believe that when people put hot curling irons into a vagina – any vagina, much less a 2-year-old – they should go to jail for the rest of their life. Real rule-of-law, where nobody has immunity and cops who commit crimes get treated like everybody else, would be a good start.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/15/obama-to-campaign-in-mass_n_424997.html
I don’t know why this surprised me.
Chaney is exactly what the two major parties need to stay in power forever, unchallenged in their mutually enriching duopoly: every year, Chaney and his ilk ping and pong between the lesser of two evils.
Perpetually daunted and discouraged about the hard work of building an alternative party from the ground up, the Chaneys of the world always find some urgent, urgent, oh-so-urgent reason to fritter away their protest vote on one or the other factions of the master class.
“2000: Taxes are the issue — vote GOP!”
“2006: Now the war is the issue — vote Dem!”
“2010: Now Obamacare is the issue — vote GOP again!”
“2012: Now the Mexico anticartel expidition is the issue — vote Dem this time!”
“2016 — ???”
Good luck with your profound-and-sublime “grand strategy” to end the nation’s borrow/spend/tax/inflate death-spiral with your well-placed tactical vote for a faux-populist Senator in a mid-term election, Chaney.
Question: why does it matter whether a 3rd party candidate is “viable”?
It matters because the majority of the people would vote for Brown in a two-candidate race, so he *should* be the winner. In reality, though, those votes will be split between Brown and another candidate who has no chance to win, leaving the winner to be the lesser-popular candidate. This is how Ross Perot helped Clinton win years ago.
I’m all for a third party, but I don’t see any viable right now. The two parties have rigged the system to make it difficult/impossible for a third party to really gain traction.
My belief is that the only reasonable thing for honest politicians to do is to work within a party, a la Ron Paul. Not a good choice, but likely the best.
As for Danny, let me just say that I rarely care about parties. But it’s clear right now that our economy will take a decade to recover from the reckless legislation that the desperate democrats are pushing right now. If we can derail the healthcare bill, we need to. They recognize that they have one chance to do this, and they’re obviously willing to go down in flames if they can get this last shot off before they crash.
[...] this case forensic examiners) in compliance with the Sixth Amendment, is just too burdensome. As Radley Balko points out, even Justices Scalia and Thomas didn’t buy what Coakley was [...]
#8 | Michael Chaney
You are incorrectly supporting Brown if you think he will help stop runaway government:
“We know every single real tax cutter in Massachusetts. We know every major phony and fake friend of taxpayers. Every slick, smooth-talking chameleon who tries to blend in with tax cutters – while he VOTES FOR TAX HIKES, VOTES FOR PROPERTY TAX INCREASES (Prop. 2 ½ overrides), and CAMPAIGNS AGAINST and VOTES AGAINST A MAJOR TAX CUT.
“Scott Brown is the worst fake tax-cutter in the Massachusetts legislature. And a fake ally is more dangerous than an open enemy.” So say Carla Howell and Michael Cloud
They sent three emails about this race and this RINO, Brown, over the past three days. Those who live in Mass, should throw their support behind Kennedy if they are truly wanting to slow the growth of government (or reverse it, which is where I am).
I will provide the relevant contents of all three emails if you want the full truth, just ask. I know the authors want this information to get out to the voters who will elect one of the three in question for this position.
Vote your principles, if your are Big Government, then it won’t matter whether you vote for Brown or Coakley — you’ll get the same result with either — but you if support small government and individual liberty, then vote for Kennedy.
Chaney: “But it’s clear right now …”
… and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next, and forever…
PS I agree with your 4th point in #8.
I just don’t see how my vote, or anyone else’s vote, “belongs” to any one of the major party candidates. How could Ross Perot have “taken away” votes to help Clinton get elected? Bush didn’t OWN the Perot votes. Perhaps some of the Perot voters had considered Bush before Ross came along, but those voters changed their minds. I change my mind all the damn time.
There won’t EVER be a viable third party until and unless voters let go of their fears and vote 3rd party of they really want to. You want to vote Libertarian? That’s not taking away a vote that “belongs” to someone else. Same with Green voters – thy don’t “belong” to the Dems.
I voted Libertarian in the 2008 election. I neither helped Obama win, nor helped McCain lose by doing so.
Our voting system has its flaws, and those flaws will never be fixed unless a miracle happens, because those flaws help the two-party system. The simple fact is that in 92, had Ross Perot not been in the race, Bush would have won. The proper way to handle this situation has been talked about in many places, but there are many other voting systems which solve this issue and make 3rd parties more viable all at the same time. Because of that, you’ll never see such here.
A thrid party would be ‘viable” if everyone who REALLY wanted smaller government and real freedom would actually vote for the candidate who truly means it, instead of selling out to one of the major party candidates just to keep the other major party candidate out of office. If all those people actually voted Libertarian they might keep BOTH big government candidates out of office.
Thanks for further exposing the evil that Coakley did in the Amirault case. As Dorothy Rabinowitz noted, it was a real travesty, and if this is Coakley’s idea of “justice,” then she does not need to have an ounce of official authority.
Martha Coakley’s oppressive behavior as Middlesex County D.A. disqualifies her from membership not only in the U.S. Senate, but probably also in the human race.
Here’s a strong hope that State Senator Scott Brown ends her future political career next Tuesday.
If you want to make smaller parties viable introduce preferential voting. Also you can have proportional representation in multi-member electorates.
We have preferential voting in all elections here in Australia and proportional representation in the Senate. While the major paries do dominate, smaller parties and independents can get elected and do have some influence.
Mattocracy:
Before the interchange between the car driver and Mr. Doyle, before he even knew the driver was employed as a State Police Trooper, Mr. Doyle should have just called the police to report the driver parked in the Firelane.
As a civilian, confronting someone who is maybe breaking a law like parked in a Firelane has a very high Risk vs. Return Ratio.
On the upside, the best you can expect is for the driver to move their car.
The worse is that the driver is a hoodlum or a state policeman who first argues with you, then it escalates to where he shoots you to death, and then it is their word vs. a dead man (you) when the report is compiled by the police.
Is that worth it over a Firelane violation?
Once in a driving rainstorm in hospital parking lot, I observed two teen-age girls park in a handicapped zone. No handicap sticker of course visible in their car.
I, Mr. Dudley Do-Right, on the other hand parked in an available parking space far from the hospital entrance.
When I arrived in the hospital, whom did I encounter but the two teen-age girls.
I told them I saw them park in a handicapped parking space. After first denying it, then they got very belligerent.
Was I supposed to SPANK them?
Then I did what I should have done in the situtation to begin with.
I turned it over to the hospital security to deal with.
I agree 100% with you on Coakley substantively.
But she is stupid to boot and for that reason alone deserves to lose on Tuesday.
Martha Coakley exclaims that Curt Schilling is a fan of the New York Yankees?
Curt Schilling!!!?
Dennis Leary, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are going to be voting for Scott Brown now.
A far simpler option is to not vote for any candidate. Then you are free of the moral consequences of aiding the lesser evil at any given moment. The system is heavily rigged in favor of two parties and a lot of corporations picking and choosing exactly who will be on a ballot before letting the public flip a coin to ‘choose’ their leaders. Its like letting a four year old order at a fast food joint, you do it to make them feel entitled not because you think they have valuable input on nutrition. Its all become a pretense to get people to agree to things when they never had a real choice in the first place.
Call it un-American if you want, but I know none of my votes ever mattered. To change a government you need to either be in office or start a revolution, anything else is voyeurism.
[...] goes to Radley Balko at theagitator.com which is where I first learned about the connection between Coakley and the Fell Acres witch hunt [...]
Coakley seems to have much in common with the very odious Janet Reno.
[...] Dorothy Rabinowitz on the execrable Ms. Coakley. [...]
Not to defend Coakley, but save a little outrage for Scott Harshbarger, who’s the real villain of the piece – and who hasn’t suffered at all. Yet.
Yeah, like Coakley, Harshbarger capitalized on the case ultimately becoming Attorney General as well.
And then there’s Janet Reno, but that’s a different case altogether…