Martha Coakley has had a small bone to pick with me for a few months.
The attorney general was displeased in November when I criticized her decision to bring criminal charges against former state treasurer Tim Cahill for running ads promoting his leadership of the state lottery during his kamikaze bid for governor in 2010. I accused her of criminalizing the normal business of politics which — let’s face it — involves big doses of self-promotion, some at public expense. The jury in Cahill’s case deadlocked in December.
Comments
a criminal conviction would have been a better result.
You were right in the first place Mr. Walker. he never should have been tried for something that numerous other electeds do on a regular basis...Galvin on tv ads and post office brochures, Grossman on ads and announcements, the governor on highway signs...difference is, Cahill did NOT appear in any of the ads in question! How did it help his campaign? Coakley overreached...and the jury agreed...at taxpayers expense...Cahill is not a rich man and is surely already up to his neck in debt from fighting Coakley's charges...he has been forced to accept paying another 100K or have to go on paying attorneys to fight Coakley's unjust charges...hobson's choice...SHAME...
'Everyone is doing it' is hardly an excuse. Hopefully this trial is a step toward these elected people NOT doing these things.
I agree that common sense prevailed but as a taxpayer I think Martha Coakley should be fined in the amount of the misguided criminal prosecution. I also think Cahill should be reimbursed his legal fees. Of course I know that's never going to happen but I think it would be fair. Why is it that politicians from working class backgrounds are the ones always being prosecuted? Are they the only poliicians who break the law?
Agreed, Sir. Fine points!
Look at all the time wasted on pursuing that poor hapless son of a gun while a real genuine criminal, one who really knows hoe to lie and steal, former Chelsea housing chief Michael E. McLaughlin looks to be getting off with a slap on the wrist.
Cahill got a sweet deal in the end but no, he certainly wasn't 'vindicated.' LoL
MenD is so right. "Everyone does it" is no excuse and, moreover, it's a lie. Everyone does not do it.
That excuse is always put forward when somebody they like is involved, or somebody they don't like is making the charge.
Wrong is wrong is wrong. Wrong is never right, even if candlone and DocRiversForPresident think it is.
I wonder how many taxpayer dollars were spent in Coakley's "overreach". A major issue with our criminal justice system is the limited concern with actual justice. More important to "just win baby" in the immortal words of Al Davis. As if "justice" were irrelevant to the outcome. Of far greater concern are matters like conviction ratios. And of course folks like Ms. Coakley are highly motivated by their OWN political aspirations as well. Shouldn't we consider her own agenda in persuing these prosecutions that cost the Commonwealth?
I understand our system is adversarially based...but can we put the "justice" back in there a bit more?
Of course if Martha Coakley had to stand out in the cold in January to prosecute him this would never had happened.