Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins needs to leave her no-prosecute list at home if she lands the U.S. Attorney post for Massachusetts.
President Biden, once again appearing to pacify the progressive wing of the Democratic party, has nominated Rollins for the federal job.
The U.S. Senate must confirm her, but if they do, Rollins will become the first Black woman to run the office of 200 federal prosecutors. It’s a critical job that comes at a critical time. In some ways, Rollins seems to have more influence as district attorney. But when a president calls it’s probably impossible to say no.
That’s why the district attorney shouldn’t take anything off the table.
She made a splash when she vowed to not prosecute 15 lower-level misdemeanor offenses during her campaign for district attorney in 2018. According to one study, it seems to have worked to some degree.
But the message conveyed early on landed more like an insult to law enforcers. Reform isn’t easy — in any profession — that’s why change agents should consider leading from the inside. Marching into the U.S. Attorney’s Office with a list of what will and won’t be done is basically assuming you know everything before you sharpen a single pencil.
Rollins sent out the following statement via her office Monday a few hours after being named as the nominee: “Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins is incredibly humbled by the great honor of being nominated by President Biden to be US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. She remains focused on doing the hard work of keeping the residents of Suffolk County safe.”
That’s better than announcing a list of “charges to be declined” — from trespassing to shoplifting, disturbing the peace, breaking and entering, threats, drug possession, resisting arrest to malicious destruction of property — as she did as district attorney.
Her 65-page policy blueprint released to staffers, and obtained by the Herald in 2019, also instructed her employees to be on the lookout for federal ICE agents in or around courthouses, telling them to “immediately notify” her if the feds are looking for illegal immigrants in court.
How would that play now if she becomes the top federal prosecutor around here?
Under former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, MS-13 and the Latin Kings were targeted. Those gangs would welcome any memo that keeps immigration agents as far away as possible. To be fair, Rollins has vowed to track down violent criminals as district attorney.
But the U.S. Attorney’s job stands tall.
They serve as the nation’s “principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General of the United States of America. … charged with ensuring ‘that the laws be faithfully executed,’ the 93 United States Attorneys work to enforce federal laws throughout the country,” the USAO states.
Some pretty heady stuff.
Sex trafficking, embezzlement, heroin trafficking — on Cape Cod in a recent case — murder-for-hire, tax evasion, romance and unemployment fraud, credit card fraud and carjacking are just a few recent headlines from the U.S. attorneys across the country.
The federal court in Boston has seen mobsters, marathon bombers, greedy parents in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal and even a few questionable prosecutions. It’s been a place of pride and punishment for decades. It needs to remain that way no matter who fills the office of the head attorney.
