Identity crisis

In the race to be the next district attorney for Middlesex County, Louise Woodward's name may mean more than the candidates'

by Jason Gay

Before Joe Kennedy jumped ship and the Eighth Congressional District race started filling up like a Titanic lifeboat, the battle to become the next district attorney of Middlesex County was supposed to be one of the hottest political contests of the year. You had three intriguing Democrats: Tim Flaherty, a Norfolk County prosecutor and the son of former Massachusetts House Speaker Charles Flaherty; Michael Sullivan, a Cambridge city councilor and scion of a storied political clan; and Middlesex assistant DA Martha Coakley, who prosecuted the Louise Woodward case. You also had a major job (the Middlesex DA's Office handles roughly 35,000 cases annually) that has become something of a political launch pad: Scott Harshbarger was Middlesex DA, John Kerry was a first assistant in the late '70s, and the current DA, Tom Reilly, is now running for state attorney general. And after l'affaires Woodward, Eddie O'Brien, and Stephen Fagan, no one needed convincing that the Middlesex DA's job could be a high-profile gig.

But these days, the Middlesex DA's contest suffers from a serious case of I-don't-care-right-now-itis. An electorate swamped by the bulging Eighth ballot, the governor's race, and some more-serious-than-expected state rep battles has been less than invigorated by this competition. The media, too, have hardly been enthusiastic. The Middlesex DA battle has been virtually absent from television. In the daily newspapers, it remains mostly relegated to the deep pages, back behind the classifieds and the cryptograms.

It deserves better, of course. Whether or not anyone is paying attention, it is still a hotly contested race. It still features the Flaherty-Sullivan-Coakley triumvirate (along with a GOP entrant, Lee Johnson), and it is still considered way too close to call. Big money is being raised and spent, TV blitzes are being prepared, and the candidates are lobbing bombs at each other at every turn. Flaherty and Sullivan take turns bashing Coakley as a publicitymonger. Coakley responds by chiding her competition as a pair of fortunate sons, well connected but poorly qualified.

Beneath this predictable personality warfare, however, is a more substantive debate about law and order. The sensational courthouse circuses of the past few years repelled some residents and fascinated others, but either way, they have raised serious questions about the approach to justice in a metropolitan area. Whether the issue is cameras in the courtroom or the role of prosecutors in the press, it seems that everyone has an opinion about the Middlesex DA's Office. How those opinions will translate come election day, though, is largely up to Flaherty, Sullivan, and Coakley.

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A collection of 54 cities and towns stretching from Cambridge and Malden to Lowell, Framingham, and the hinterlands of Groton and Ayer, Middlesex County is a large and diverse chunk of judicial turf. Its 1.4 million residents make it the third-most-populous county in the nation, and their law-enforcement needs vary widely. Depending on where you are in the county, the average resident's idea of crime can range from homicides and gang violence to property damage and petty larceny.

The Middlesex wanna-bes themselves, however, are pretty similar philosophically. Flaherty, Sullivan, and Coakley all tout good-Democrat agendas thick with promises of expanded services for crime victims, intervention programs to address domestic violence and child abuse, improved community policing, and better outreach to at-risk youth. Flaherty and Sullivan oppose the death penalty; Coakley supports it, but only for cop killers and people who are convicted of murder while serving a life sentence for another crime. All three candidates are young (at 44, Coakley is the senior citizen), relatively well seasoned in the courtroom, and not unfamiliar with the political landscape.

But because Coakley is considered the front-runner, Flaherty and Sullivan have sought to turn the race into something of a referendum on her star status by challenging the Reilly regime's handling of its recent high-profile cases. Flaherty, in particular, has questioned the prosecution's first-degree murder charge in the Woodward trial (he would have recommended manslaughter), and he has chastised the DA's Office for playing to the press.

"There is a feeling that things could have been handled better," says Flaherty. "People out there understand that it's not a job that should be handled by a publicity seeker."

That characterization may be an overstatement, but it's true that the Middlesex DA's Office has received an unusual amount of attention in recent years. Between the transatlantic cause célèbre that was the Woodward trial, the courtroom mania surrounding Eddie O'Brien (whose father went berserk when he was convicted), the Amirault roller coaster, and the murder-rape of young Jeffrey Curley, Middlesex has been especially busy. At times, it seemed as if Reilly -- a thin, stiff-shouldered prosecutor who was Harshbarger's first assistant DA -- was presiding over more made-for-television dramatics than Aaron Spelling.

As one of Reilly's top assistants, Coakley was knee-deep in many of these cases, and she found herself before banks of TV cameras more than once. A wiry blond prosecutor who left the private sector (namely, the cushy confines of Choate, Hall & Stewart) for public service, Coakley can be as stone-faced as her departing boss, but her supporters praise her courtroom compassion, especially for the rights of victims. In the Woodward mess, for example, her articulate advocacy for Deborah and Sunil Eappen allowed her to emerge as the trial's breakout star.

Like a rock star with one Top 10 hit, Coakley knows she will be identified with Woodward for the rest of her career, and that wherever she goes, people are going to want to hear about it. Coakley still spends considerable time responding to people's second-guessing of the prosecution's strategy, but she says she has also received plenty of support. "People like the job I did," she says.

When you add the fact that Coakley is a high-ranking woman in what remains largely a man's world, it's clear why she has benefited from more positive press than Matt Damon and Ben Affleck combined. Indeed, the Boston Globe has run a virtual shadow campaign for her, with shameless pro-Coakley musings from columnists Eileen McNamara, Robert A. Jordan, and editorial-page fossil David Nyhan. "Is this trim, blond lady lawyer really a tough-as-nails prosecutor?" Nyhan gushed this spring. "Because she could certainly play one on TV."

Naturally, Flaherty and Sullivan gag at Coakley's treatment thus far. The way they see it, their good qualities are being ignored by a public more interested in stargazing -- at a carpetbagger, no less (Coakley moved into the county from Dorchester in January). At the same time, both candidates have sought to capitalize on the revulsion some residents felt after the British au pair's return overseas. The basic idea is this: if you found the Woodward episode embarrassing, you don't want someone like Coakley as your next DA.

"If you do your job, you get press. You shouldn't worry about generating it," Sullivan says. Pointing to TV appearances by representatives from the DA's Office, he adds: "It's not a job to use to get yourself on the Today show."

Coakley, who tried unsuccessfully to unseat state representative James Brett in 1997, knows the political game and understands why her competitors are taking this offensive tack. But she scoffs at the idea that she or Reilly somehow went Hollywood in the past year. "Both [Flaherty and Sullivan] are fooling themselves if they think they can be district attorney and think they don't have to respond to legitimate inquiries from the press," she says.

And besides, it's not as if Flaherty or Sullivan just fell off the turnip truck. Both come from politically connected families, and both understand the machinations of the public and the press. The soft-spoken, compact Sullivan is the son of former Cambridge mayor Walter Sullivan and a nephew of Edward Sullivan, Middlesex County's long-time clerk of courts. The Sullivans continue to hold a firm grip on Cambridge working-class politics and are still mostly well regarded; drive around the city, and it's near-impossible to find a slice of terra firma without a red-white-and-blue MICHAEL A. SULLIVAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY sign.

A former assistant DA under Harshbarger who followed him to the Attorney General's Office, the 38-year-old Sullivan has built his campaign around a "prevention-intervention" motif -- the idea that the DA should extend his orbit beyond the courthouse and into communities, reaching out to troubled residents before they land themselves in jail. He touts his Cambridge City Council experience as evidence of his political acumen, and he doesn't shy away from his electoral lineage. "I don't run away from it [my family]," Sullivan says. "I'm very proud of my heritage."

By comparison, Flaherty -- a tall, athletic 33-year-old who prosecuted his first case before he turned 25 -- seems to bristle at the insinuation that he's riding family coattails, even if Dad has been especially helpful on the fundraising circuit (Flaherty raised $253,000 through July, the most of the three Democrats). It's understandable why Flaherty the younger insists he's his own man; after all, Charlie Flaherty was drummed out of office following a tax-evasion scandal and charges of accepting improper gifts from lobbyists. NOBODY OWNS HIM, Tim's campaign brochure screams. "If I'm elected, the sign on the door will read TIMOTHY R. FLAHERTY. Anyone who thinks otherwise will be greatly disappointed," Flaherty says, snuffing out those TIMMY FLAHERTY or MR. F'S OFFICE door-sign rumors.

Given Flaherty's familial background, it seems somewhat ironic that he's campaigning on a take-the-politics-out-of-prosecution platform. But Flaherty, who possesses the affable cockiness of a cleanup hitter, has also taken what may be the race's boldest position: arguing to ban television cameras from the courtroom. In his experience, Flaherty says, cameras cause court staff to behave differently, and he posits that eliminating them would cut down on the media madness that has plagued recent Middlesex trials. "As a professional prosecutor, my role isn't to provide entertainment to the public. It's not even to inform the public. It's to win cases," Flaherty says.

Not surprisingly, Coakley and Sullivan reject Flaherty's proposed camera ban. "Regressive -- a step back into the Dark Ages," Coakley told the Globe. Sullivan says it's not the courtroom cameras, but the way the media use the resulting footage, that skews the coverage and public opinion. "This is a community that values its openness," he says.

Perhaps, but the very fact that the issue has come up for debate during this DA's race shows how unsettling the recent season of legal theatrics has been for Middlesex County. Now that Louise Woodward is home in Britain and Eddie O'Brien sits in a cell, will the public still care on Election Day?

At least three people hope so.

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay@phx.com.