The decide who presided over the Mattapan Bloodbath and Patriot Aaron Hernandez’s second homicide trials will now head a bureau trying into doubtlessly wrongful convictions in Suffolk County.
Suffolk District Lawyer Kevin Hayden introduced on Thursday that Jeffrey A. Locke, who was as soon as the chief justice of the state Trial Court docket, will head the DA workplace’s Integrity Evaluation Bureau.
“Judge Locke’s impeccable record of fairness and impartiality combined with his deep knowledge of the law and trial procedures give him an ideal skill set to lead the IRB,” Hayden stated in his announcement. “He has a balanced perspective that comes from many years of giving all sides equal consideration, with favor only to facts and evidence.”
The IRB is the present iteration of the workplace to evaluation doubtlessly wrongful convictions that started beneath Nineteen Nineties DA Ralph Martin, turned formalized because the Conviction Integrity Panel in 2004 beneath then-DA Dan Conley and took on its present identify and construction beneath speedy previous DA Rachael Rollins.
Locke, reporting on to Hayden, will oversee the bureau that investigates “credible claims of innocence, wrongful conviction, and other circumstances that may have produced an improper judicial result.”
“I am honored to be entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that criminal convictions in Suffolk County have been justly obtained. I look forward to working with District Attorney Hayden and his talented team,” Locke stated.
Locke was himself a DA in Norfolk County from 1997 to 1999 after eight years within the federal system as an assistant U.S. legal professional and deputy chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Activity Pressure, in accordance with a state biography.
His judicial profession ended with a time period as chief justice of the trial court docket from January 19, 2022, via Dec. 21, 2023, when he had reached obligatory retirement age. He was beforehand the chair of the Massachusetts Sentencing Fee from 2018 to 2022, the regional administrative justice for prison circumstances in Suffolk County from 2012 to 2015, and for all circumstances in Plymouth County from 2007 to 2011, in accordance with a DA bio.
A spotlight of his time on the bench in Suffolk County was serving as decide within the trial that convicted Dwayne Moore who slew 4 — together with a 2-year-old boy — in what was often called “Mattapan Massacre” in September 2010.
Locke additionally presided over the double-murder trial of Aaron Hernandez. The killer former Patriot had already been convicted of the homicide of Odin Lloyd in 2015 when Locke presided over one other Hernandez trial in 2017 for the drive-by capturing deaths of Daniel de Abreau and Safiro Furtado, for which Hernandez was acquitted.
