Martha Coakley of Middlesex Witch Hunt Fame, Now Attorney General of Massachusetts

Mulling over the Paul Shanley case and marveling at the ability of ambitious, corrupt prosecutors to place innocent people in jail no matter how ridiculous the charges are against them, I ran into this letter from 2001 involving Martha Coakley (now ATTORNEY GENERAL). You recall Martha from my prior post involving Paul Shanley.

This letter is eye opening. I'm just glad to see that at one time, in a galaxy far away, a few sane people existed, even in a witch-burning, Martha-loving state like Massachusetts. How wonderful that a human being, as loved as Martha Coakley, as full of integrity and sociopathological instincts, can rise from being a mere prosecutor to being Attorney General, and in such a progressive and educated state. How many bodies did she have to step over? How many innocent people did she have to jail? How many thousands did she have to fool?

And now, the letter.

The Boston HeraldAugust 12, 2001 Sunday ; Pg. 026
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A scandal continues

The cynical manipulation by the Middlesex County prosecutor's office of the child witnesses against Gerald Amirault who are now young adults makes it depressingly clear that the office of prosecutor is intended by its occupants to serve their political ambitions and not the cause of justice ("Amirault victims come out of hiding to keep him jailed," Aug. 3). Martha Coakley and her cohorts and precursors know full well that children who were 3, 4 and 5 years old at the time of the Fells Acres trials some 15 years ago - 15 years filled with constant reassertions by prosecutors and parents of the validity of the original claims - do not, cannot and will not ever be able to have untainted memories of their experiences. Hauling these innocent young people out for a press conference was disgraceful.

These children were victims of politically ambitious and woefully ignorant prosecutors who chose to disregard the coercive interrogations by the inexperienced graduate student assigned to dig the "truth" out of the children, to ignore bizarre claims that defied all rationality (e.g. sodomy with lobsters and knives) and to close their eyes to the utter lack of substantiating physical evidence.

- Margaret A. Hagen, Department of Psychology Boston University.
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Margaret A. Hagen is the the author of Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony & the Rape of American Justice (1997); Regan Books-Imprint of Harper-Collins.
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A great piece on Amirault here.
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