Rollins’s departure mirrors US trend
Reform-minded prosecutors face national backlash
Rachael Rollins was at the forefront of a national wave of reform-minded prosecutors when she was elected Suffolk district attorney in 2018. She quickly moved on her campaign promise to prosecute fewer low-level crimes and confront racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
Midway through her term she was tapped by President Biden to serve as US attorney for Massachusetts, expanding her prosecutorial reach as the first Black woman to hold the job as the state’s top federal law enforcement official.
Now, weeks after Rollins’s resignation in the wake of two explosive federal watchdog reports, legal experts say her departure may not have any direct impact on the movement she championed, even as it comes at a pivotal time: A number of progressive prosecutors across the country have been removed, impeached, resigned, and, in at least one case, indicted on criminal charges.
“I wonder whether progressive prosecutors may be a little more careful about how closely they align with the political movement because that did really get her in trouble,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a former prosecutor and professor of law and ethics at New York Law School. “I don’t think the progressive prosecutor movement is going to change, but it may be a wake-up call to some of them to take a step back.”
Rollins’s political career collapsed last month when two federal reports released by the Office of Special Counsel and the Department of Justice’s Inspector General detailed a multitude of ethics violations by her during her 16 months as US attorney. They found that she violated the Hatch Act by engaging in partisan activities, including her attendance last summer at a Democratic fundraiser in Andover headlined by first lady Jill Biden.
Yet the most serious findings were that she tried to sabotage the Suffolk district attorney election between her eventual successor, Kevin Hayden, and Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo. The report showed Rollins wanted a successor who would carry on her progressive policies, so she used her position to try to initiate a federal investigation of Hayden’s handling of a case involving MBTA police officers and leaked an internal DOJ memo to create the false impression that he was being targeted by investigators.
Rahsaan Hall, the newly appointed president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, said it’s important
for people to remember that Rollins’s resignation was triggered by scrutiny of her conduct as US attorney, not her progressive policies and practices as district attorney.
“I think what has happened to her clouds the benefit of what she was able to do,” Hall said.
Rollins’s lasting legacy, Hall said, won’t be of her resignation, but instead how she helped exonerate and free people who were wrongly convicted and “pushed back on all of the norms of the system and made it a better system for a handful of people.”
Rollins was at the vanguard of the progressive prosecutor movement in Massachusetts and was unique, according to Hall, in “the way that she used her platform to call out injustices and to talk about race and racism within the system.”
“I think there has been a national backlash against progressive prosecutors, which is largely unjustified,” said Hall, adding that he believes their policies have been wrongly blamed for an uptick in crime.
Rollins drew criticism immediately after she was sworn in as Suffolk district attorney in January 2019 when she issued a list of 15 “low-level” nonviolent crimes that her office would no longer prosecute, which included shoplifting, drug possession with intent to distribute, and some forms of resisting arrest. Rollins said she planned to help stop a “freight train moving toward mass incarceration of poor people and black and brown people.”
Critics blamed the new policy for increasing crime. But an independent study released in 2021 that analyzed nearly two decades of data in Suffolk County found that not prosecuting low-level crimes was more successful in directing nonviolent offenders away from the criminal justice system.
Rollins said she embraced a holistic approach to prosecution, which required her to consider the impact on defendants, as well as victims and the greater community.
Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz, the only Republican among the state’s 11 district attorneys, said “time will tell” what Rollins’s impact may be on the movement. But, he said, the rejection by voters nationwide of a litany of progressive prosecutors who were swept into office over the past six years shows that the movement hasn’t worked.
“They treated defendants like they were victims and treated the real victims like they were invisible,” Cruz said. “It doesn’t matter your gender. It doesn’t matter your race. We treat everybody the same.”
The same week that Rollins stepped down, Kim Gardner resigned from her job as St. Louis’s top attorney. Last year, San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Marilyn Mosby lost her bid for a second term as Baltimore’s top prosecutor following her indictment on federal charges involving the purchase of two vacation homes. In Massachusetts, Andrea Harrington was defeated in her bid last fall for a second term as Berkshire district attorney.
But other progressive prosecutors across the country have prevailed against blowback, including Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose impeachment by state lawmakers was rejected in court.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said the progressive movement was sweeping Massachusetts long before Rollins was district attorney and her resignation is unlikely to have much impact locally. He said the state has had the lowest incarceration rate in the country for at least six years and a number of progressive reforms have been put in place in recent years, including diversion programs related to sentencing, and the treatment of juveniles, substance abusers, and low-level offenders.
“I like to think the work that was being done by prosecutors, police, probation, and the courts put Massachusetts in a position where we had been leaders,” said Morrissey, adding that all of the state’s district attorneys “do some things collectively that would be considered progressive.”
He added, “Even before Rachael was elected we were doing a good job and moving in the right direction.”