Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington promised to make criminal justice more equitable when she was elected in 2018. Some hope the incoming DA Timothy Shugrue, who takes office next month, will continue her approach. Others are hoping for a different path toward reform.
'Not go backwards'
After taking office, Harrington launched a new policy to reduce the use of cash bail. Prosecutors would stop asking for it in most nonviolent cases. She said holding people behind bars because they can’t afford bail is unfair and doesn’t make communities safer.
"We were off to a good start for the first time in the history of the DA’s of Berkshire County so I think that’s important to continue," said Dennis Powell, president of the Berkshire NAACP. "And to even move closer to getting that reform — not go backwards."
Powell wants the next district attorney, Timothy Shugrue, to understand the answer isn’t always to lock people up.
"I know there is concern with shoplifting and all of that, in stores and supermarkets, but we also need to recognize the hardships and the hard times people are dealing with," Powell said. "Because [if] I happen to take that risk because of my family situation and lift a loaf of bread and something to go with it, do I deserve to go to jail for that?"
As part of her reform efforts, Harrington reduced prosecution of crimes like shoplifting and some drug-related crimes.
Shugrue has said he disagrees with that approach. He wants to prosecute and hold people accountable, but divert a defendant pre-trial to a program that could help them.
Javier Luengo-Garrido of the Massachusetts ACLU supports alternatives to putting people behind bars, such as rehab programs for addiction.
"The approach 'tough on crime,' sort of the old-school approach," Luengo-Garrido said, "it only drives policies that is going to ended up with more incarceration. And I think that's where we're looking for alternatives,"
He said after the police shooting of a young Pittsfield man this year, the next Berkshire DA has an opportunity to build a new relationship with the people he serves. Harrington determined the officer acted in self-defense.
"Berkshires is a community that has had some some issues with what happened with Miguel Estrella," Luengo-Garrido said. "And I think the new DA is going to be able to ... build more trust in the community, more transparency, and also to communicate better with the community."
Police Chief Paul Storti in Great Barrington hopes that also extends to law enforcement.
"Continue to build better communications between the district attorney's office and the local police departments in pretrial, during investigations and post trial," Storti suggested. "Just better communication all around. I think that can be improved upon."
That way, Storti said, police will understand what went well for a case and what they can do better.
And Storti would like to see more activity by the crime prevention task force at the DA’s office — where state and local police work together
"It appears over the last few years it hasn't been as active as it has in years past," he said. "I worked on the unit for 10 years, many, many years ago, but I found that it was a very good resource for smaller departments and it also was a great learning tool or partnership for the police officers in the smaller agencies."
As part of Harrington’s efforts to reduce the use of cash bail, prosecutors increased requests that people charged with certain crimes be held as a danger before their trial. Criminal defense attorney Ahmed Ismail said this is a big problem for his clients.
"When somebody is held for 120 days pretrial who's presumed to be innocent, they lose their housing, they lose their jobs, their apartments," Ismail said. "So, it’s huge."
Ismail supports Shugrue and wants people to be held as a danger only if it’s warranted. And he said when his clients are behind bars, it makes it harder to build a case to defend them.
Should prosecutors apply consistent guidelines or go 'case-by-case'?
Attorney Gregory Barry worked as an assistant district attorney for two decades before Harrington. He wants more training and supervision for ADAs. And more consistency when they make recommendations for probation or a jail sentence.
"If you on Monday, if you had a particular person with no record and they are charged with a crime of, let's say shoplifting, you get a recommendation, you're hoping on Tuesday when it's another person, with no record, that you get the same recommendation they got on Monday for a different person," Barry said. "So, it's equal justice and that always didn't happen."
While Barry wants consistency, that can cut the other way.
Katherine Grubbs is the attorney in charge of the public defender adult criminal division in Berkshire County for the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Grubbs said she wants prosecutors to take a more subjective approach.
Shugrue, she said, should "give his prosecutors some discretion to evaluate cases on a case-by-case basis."
Harrington's office was tough on those charged with crimes related to domestic violence. Grubbs hopes Shugrue will not abandon that focus — but will train assistant DA’s to look at the “unique facts” of each case, something she said hasn’t happened under Harrington.
"Any case that had a whiff of domestic violence attached to it became looked at as sort of a category of case that could only be evaluated in a certain way without looking at the facts, without listening to their victims," Grubbs said.
Grubbs said it's harmful to not consider the specifics of each case.
Overall, Grubbs said she hopes the next DA will continue to support ways to address issues like addiction or homelessness that lead to some of the crime in Berkshire County.
"There is a need, I think, to demonstrate to the community at large that the DA's office is not just about prosecuting cases, that it is also about establishing and making stronger the community at large," Grubbs said.
Harrington’s office declined to speak about the transition, deferring comment to Shugrue, who did not respond to requests for an interview.
Shugrue be sworn in as the next Berkshire DA on January 4.
