Martha and Tim, you need to get together — now. You need to sit across from each other at a conference table, a lunch table, a kitchen table, a blackjack table, doesn’t matter, and make this whole miserable case go away.
Amazingly, after a 17-month investigation, after a laborious 26-day trial involving 170 exhibits and testimony from 24 witnesses, Martha Coakley and Tim Cahill finish in a perfect position to help each other out.
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He wasn't found guilty but he also wasn't found not guilty. Some jurers were ready to convict, so how does that make him innocent. The news media have willed Cahill innocent and they seem to think a hung jury proves that he is.
If he was accused of murdering his wife, would be claiming a hung jury means he should be considered innocent. The crime is less serious, but the principle is the same.
I find it hard to believe that McGrory is advocating that evidence of corruption be ignored. I have zero tolerance. Until Cahill has been found not guilty, we shouldn't be patting him on the back and saying go home.
A column like this one makes McGrory part of the corruption problem in state government, in my opinion.
Under our legal system you are innocent until proven guilty. As of today Cahill is an innocent man. If, after a new trial, a jury finds him guilty then his legal status changes.
Well, you're both right. Legally, Cahill is innocent, as Mr. Cronin points out. Your point, 1940, is valid from an ethical standpoint rather than legal.
I don't understand the criticism of Coakley. She was doing her job.
If she had ignored the evidence that came to her office and decided not to prosecute, then that would be a different matter.
The jury as an entity couldn't decide. That happens, and analysis may indicate that the law needs to be clarified. But it doesn't mean that Cahill was "vindicated" or that Coakley was wrong in ursuing the case.
The criticism is because it was a weak case. The 0 for 2 record confirms it.
What I said below: you're both right. Ms. Coakley does seem to show poor judgement in trying to build a high-profile case without the juice to power it.
Awomwn of integrity Tooki Amirault.
Russian roulette would be good
Why should Cahill concede anything? Criminal cases are harder the 2nd time around after a hung jury, and Coakley failed the first time. Cahill is in the driver's seat, and his attorney knows it.
A simple warniong would have sufficed in Cahill's case. Every project or program around here has some politician's name plastered all over it. Menino comes to mind.
You're right. The real warning should have occured when the first ad aired if it didn't meet the sniff test. I'm politically neutral on Tim Cahill but I think that this case is an additional waste of the taxpayers money on many levels. Martha, if you want to be good at poker, you have to know when to fold 'em.
This case should have been handled at Ethics and McGrory's tarring of the entire state government is disgusting. I've worked in state government and I've worked at a few newspapers (not at the Globe), and far and away the most corrupt place I ever worked at was a newspaper where the editors constantly spiked stories that showed their friends in a poor light.