One Phone Call

Last Thursday, Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly gave an emotional defense of his decision to ask a district attorney not to release records concerning a drunk-driving accident that killed two Massachusetts girls in the fall. His defense, however, does not account for his remarkably poor judgment in the matter. The attorney general and gubernatorial candidate may have negatively affected a pending criminal investigation with his request, and his closeness to the girls’ family raises serious questions about whether the request was a product of political favoritism or genuine compassion.

In October, two teenaged sisters—Shauna Murphy, 17, and Meghan Murphy, 15—died after slamming into a utility pole while driving from a party in Northborough, Massachusetts, where they had allegedly been drinking. A third passenger, 15-year-old Melissa Smith, was also seriously injured. The “social host” law in the state punishes those who allow minors to drink on their property with up to one year in prison and a $2,000 fine. Believing that he had a strong “social host” case against party host Nathanial Berberian, Northborough Police Chief Mark Leahy asked Worcester District Attorney John Conte to release the results of the toxicology tests conducted as part of the victims’ autopsies to his department.

The toxicology reports, if they did indeed verify witness accounts that the sisters had been drinking at the party, could have provided Leahy’s investigation with serious evidence against Berberian. A clear message should have been sent that the people of this Commonwealth will not tolerate further needless tragedy facilitated by irresponsible social hosts. If Reilly was going to involve himself in this case at all, he should have acted in his capacity as the state’s most senior prosecutor and ensured that the law was properly and aggressively enforced.

Evidently, political connections are more important to the attorney general than his responsibilities to the people of the Commonwealth. Reilly did indeed involve himself in the case. He involved himself by calling Conte and asking him to protect the privacy of the girls by not releasing their toxicology reports to the media. The girls’ father, Christopher Murphy, happens to be a friend of Reilly’s who donated $300 to his gubernatorial campaign in June. Conte did as the attorney general suggested, and more. Saying that he did not believe a criminal case against Berberian could succeed, he refused to even release the toxicology reports privately to the Northborough police, who subsequently dropped their investigation.

Reilly maintains that he acted only in the best interests of a family that has endured a horrible experience, and that he never asked Conte to drop the case entirely. But this defense is highly dubious. It’s unlikely, after all, that the attorney general places similar phone calls in all cases involving families with which he is not personally acquainted. If the attorney general is not going to demonstrate similar “compassion” for all Massachusetts families victimized by drunk driving, then it is grossly inappropriate for him to do so only when the family involved happens to be politically and personally connected to him.

Furthermore, even if Reilly never directly intended to hamper the investigation, his request could only have injured it. The attorney general is the ranking law enforcement official in the Commonwealth, and any request he makes of a subordinate carries considerable clout. Reilly may or may not have intended to close the case against Berberian, but he is at the very least naïve to suppose that asking a subordinate district attorney to keep records about his friend’s family from the public eye would have no impact whatsoever on the investigation—especially considering that any criminal proceeding against Berberian would have rendered those records public anyway.

Some might argue, of course, that the toxicology reports should indeed have remained private out of respect for the Murphy family’s privacy. The attorney general’s job, however, is not to protect the privacy of his friends; his job is to enforce the law. The sisters’ identities had been known since October, and the toxicology reports would not have made public any new dramatic details that were not already generally known. Where privacy is not statutorily protected, as it is for sexual abuse victims and juvenile defendants, we firmly believe that decisions of propriety should be made in the newsroom, not by agents of law enforcement. Without the conclusive evidence provided by the toxicology reports, the public can never determine whether Conte and Leahy made the right decision in dropping the criminal investigation. Public trust in law enforcement depends upon public review and scrutiny, and Reilly’s request in this case essentially denied the public this necessity.