Friday, January 06, 2006

Did Tom Reilly do the right thing?

My own sense is that the attorney general overreached by telling Worcester County D.A. John Conte not to release the autopsy reports for Shauna and Meghan Murphy, teenage sisters who died in what seems to have been an alcohol-related car accident last October. After all, as Reilly noted in his hastily called press conference yesterday, Massachusetts law already dicated that those reports remain private. The A.G. shouldn't have to remind a district attorney to follow existing law. And since the Murphy parents are friends of Reilly's, there's a whiff of favoritism to his request.

Furthermore, even though Reilly insists he did nothing to derail a police investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash, it's reasonable to think that whatever Reilly told Conte affected the D.A.'s subsequent dealings with Northborough police chief Mark Leahy. Remember, Leahy has accused the D.A. of refusing to make the autopsy reports available to his department, and eventually chose to close the case. (There's a ton of details to keep straight here; for anyone new to the story or searching for a quick refresher, I suggest the sidebar that to the aforementioned Globe piece.)

All that said, today's Herald treatment of the story--which includes a sensationalistic front page ("REILLY ON THE ROPES") and a story titled "Candidacy could weather storm"--goes way, way overboard. There is a controversy here, and it's fair game for scrutiny by the media, Reilly's protestations notwithstanding. But by the the time the Democratic gubernatorial primary rolls around, this'll be a mere footnote. Yes, Reilly made a mistake. And the Howie Carr contingent will cite this as evidence that Reilly's part of a corrupt and monolithic Democratic establishment. They wouldn't have supported Reilly anyway, however. Most importantly, any voter who's a parent will sympathize with the Murphy family's plight--and even if they think Reilly acted unwisely, they'll likely forgive him.

Finally, a bit of advice for lieutenant governor Kerry Healey: given your unfortunate knack for indelicate speech, stay as far away from this one as possible.