TEAM REMAINS TO BE SEEN
DA-elect dinged for lack of transparency
Suffolk District Attorneyelect Rachael Rollins is being slammed for not releasing the full list of her transition team members — including former convicts — in what critics are calling a potentially dangerous lack of transparency.
Rollins announced her cochairs and steering committee members yesterday, but did not identify any of the members she has referred to as “returning citizens” who did time behind bars.
A spokeswoman confirmed the transition team has several “formerly incarcerated” members. But she refused to release their names, what crimes they were convicted of, and how many ex-cons are on the list. Rollins did not immediately respond to an interview request.
Despite the partial release and confirmation of names, the spokeswoman said late Thursday that the list is being finalized and all names will be released eventually.
Civil libertarian and attorney Harvey Silverglate called the move “shortsighted and counter-productive” as the DA-elect prepares to take over Jan. 2.
“It’s the definition of lack of transparency,” Silverglate said. “It’s common sense to maintain full transparency.”
Silverglate said openness will be vital as Rollins begins to act on her controversial list of charges she has said she will not prosecute. Those charges include resisting arrest, drug dealing and possession, shoplifting and trespassing.
The no-prosecute list is “unorthodox” and not sharing the entire team membership is “inexplicable,” said David Tuerck of the Beacon Hill Institute.
“There are 1,000 reasons why it’s a bad idea,” Tuerck added. “Everybody has to be known to the public. It’s suspicious to be assembling a group of ex-cons and to then not tell who the people are.”
But Mayor Martin J. Walsh raised no objection to the incoming DA’s controversial moves.
Walsh spokeswoman Samantha Ormsby said in a statement last night: “The mayor believes District Attorney-elect Rollins should run the transition how she sees fit.”
Earlier this week, one transition team member who said he wants to “redefine gangster” and used the hashtag “#SingleCellToSingleDad” posted on Facebook that he’s eager to grill prosecutors and homicide unit staffers who are looking to keep their jobs. Rollins confirmed at that time that Christian White is on the transition team, telling the Herald he had taken “responsibility for decisions he made in the past … if people pay their debt to society they should be welcomed back.”
The transition team members that Rollins did name include co-chairs Martin Murphy and Natashia Tidwell. Both are veteran attorneys who served as prosecutors, with Murphy working both on the state and federal level, while Tidwell was also a police officer.
Rollins said retired judges, clergy, law enforcement officials and “select members of the local community” will also be on the team.
Steering committee members include the Rev. Willie Bodrick II, from Roxbury’s Twelfth Baptist Church, and retired Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine Hines.
Daniel P. Mulhern, senior adviser to the mayor and director of the city’s Office of Public Safety, is also on board.
Donna Patalano, who once worked in the Suffolk DA’s office and ran for district attorney in Middlesex County, losing to fellow Democrat incumbent Marian Ryan this fall, is also on the steering committee. Patalano has been acting as Rollins’ spokeswoman during the transition.