Daniel F. Conley - Reforms and Innovations

Reforms and Innovations

Massachusetts is just one of only four states (along with the District of Columbia) that have no continuing legal education requirement for attorneys. Recognizing that prosecutors need to be informed on new and developing areas of law in addition to the fundamentals, Conley implemented a continuing training legal education policy within his office that far exceeds what is required for Massachusetts lawyers once they pass the bar exam. The policy mandates that all Suffolk prosecutors continue their professional development through trainings, seminars, and other presentations. Some training opportunities are mandatory, such as those addressing the disclosure of so-called “Brady material” to defense counsel; others allow prosecutors to hone their skills in particular fields of prosecution, such as child abuse and domestic violence. The training policy goes above and beyond what’s merely necessary and guarantees that the assistant district attorneys practicing in Boston and Suffolk County can provide the highest level of advocacy for the communities they serve.

In 2004, Conley and the then-Commissioner of the Boston Police Department empaneled a blue-ribbon task force to evaluate the ways in which police gather and prosecutors use eyewitness evidence. In an effort to ensure that the historical wrongful convictions that came to light under his leadership never reoccurred, Conley assigned his top courtroom prosecutor to join with ranking police officials, prominent defense attorneys, and the nation's leading academic expert on eyewitness identification to review the investigative processes by which eyewitness evidence was gathered and recommend changes that would minimize the likelihood of faulty identifications.

The panel returned with a sweeping set of unprecedented reforms that were rapidly implemented by area law enforcement. The reforms prompted defense attorney Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project to cite Boston and Suffolk County as being "at the forefront of the country" in averting wrongful convictions, and eyewitness evidence expert Gary Wells to call them the "Gold Standard" to which other jurisdictions should aspire.

Shortly after taking office, Conley implemented a policy of assenting to any reasonable request for post-conviction testing of DNA evidence that was unavailable at the time of a defendant’s trial. In 2011, Conley voiced his support, with additional recommendations, for legislation that would expand that voluntary policy statewide. “his legislation codifies many of the practices that I voluntarily put in place six or seven years ago,” Conley wrote to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. “These are good practices that serve the interest of justice.”

Under Conley's stewardship, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office partnered with numerous service providers, government agencies, and victim advocacy groups to build the Family Justice Center of Boston. The FJCB streamlines services for victims of child abuse, intimate partner violence, and sexual crimes by coordinating the responses of numerous agencies and providers - including police, prosecutors, social workers, and others - under one roof. The burdens on victims are reduced while efforts to hold their abusers accountable under the law are enhanced.

Also operating out of the FJCB is the Support to End Exploitation Now (SEEN), a multi-agency task force directed by members of Conley's office that has twice been named one of the Top 50 Innovative Government Projects by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation.