Check out
this article by
Radley Balko of the libertarian Reason magazine:
This part stopped me short:
"Despite a parole board’s 5-0 recommendation to grant
Gerald Amirault clemency and mounting doubts about the evidence against him,
Coakley publicly and aggressively lobbied then-Gov. Jane Swift to deny
Amirault relief.
Amirault remained in prison."
This case was also known as the
Fells Acre Day Care Center case. I remember it vividly from my time in Massachusetts. I remember it as a disaster of a case, marked by countless poor decisions by prosecutors throughout both the trial and its
lonnnnng and painful aftermath.
I remember it as a milestone in the rise of
day care sex abuse hysteria in the 1980s and think of it still as a
tipping point in the demonization of men in our culture.
I remember it as the case that caused a generation of men to view interacting with other people's children as a risk.
It was the case that caused men to hesitate before volunteering at the Y, hesitate before helping out with the girl scout cookie drive, and hesitate before signing up to coach youth sports.
It was the case that caused men to think twice before watching a neighbor's kid, think twice about driving a child's teammate home from practice, and think twice about entering the teaching profession.
It's possible that
Balko has somehow gotten it wrong.
But if I still lived in Massachusetts, I wouldn't pull the lever for
Martha Coakley until I heard an explanation about her role in the clemency arguments of the
Amirault case.
