[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]
I spent many years in Berkshire County practicing law. I have since moved out of Massachusetts.
Martha Coakley badly mishandled the Fells Acres alleged child abuse case in Malden, Massachusetts, with the Amirault family, causing the premature death of Violet Amirault and lasting personal and professional harm to Cheryl Amirault LeFave and her brother Gerald, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years. Violet and Cheryl each served 8 years in prison, after which Violet developed and died from stomach cancer.
Coakley is a disgrace to the legal profession, a prosecutor without any feel for justice or truth.
Many Berkshire County residents are leery of Coakley, as well they should be. It is bad enough that she got elected chief legal officer of Massachusetts (attorney general). It would be a travesty for her to be elected to the United States Senate.
Judge Isaac Borenstein kept Cheryl from being retried, but only at the cost of her most fundamental personal liberties, including the right to speak publicly about the case until a mere three weeks from now WHEN IT IS TO BE HOPED THAT SHE WILL CASTIGATE MARTHA COAKLEY PUBLICLY FOR HER DISGRACEFUL ROLE IN THIS CASE.
In 2008 Judge Francis Fecteau issued a lengthy opinion freeing Bernard Baran, another wrongfully imprisoned purported child sex offender from Berkshire County, after 22 years of imprisonment in a similar case that was complicated by the fact that the Baran is gay. Homophobia ran rampant. Only the concurring opinion of the Massachusetts Appeals Court convinced Martha’s colleague David Capeless, Berkshire County DA, from retrying Baran, who suffered horrendous abuse during his long imprisonment.
Keeping children safe from sexual abuse is one thing. Persecuting innocent caretakers is quite another kettle of fish. Coakley still doesn’t know the difference. She is unfit for ANY public office.
