I ask you, as my friends, for a favor: to read this article. I acknowledge that you might not find the topic so engaging, but the article is short, and the topic is important to me. It might not be obvious, but this does concern my saga that began over a year ago, when I was stopped by Hadley police officer Mitchell Kuc. This is only relevant to residents of Franklin and Hampshire Counties and Athol, Massachusetts.

I admit it: I am a bad citizen. I regularly fail to inform myself sufficiently about most of my elected officials and candidates for elected offices. In fact, I became aware of the district attorney election only this weekend. However, now that I am aware of it, I realize that this is an important election, and I ask that you to please take it seriously, read what I have to say, and make sure to vote next Tuesday, September 14th. My information about the candidates has come from recordings of four debates, which were held on 08/05/2010, 08/17/2010, 08/24/2010, and 09/01/2010. Follow the preceeding links for video recordings of these debates.

The current district attorney, Elizabeth Scheibel, has held the office for sixteen years. There are two candidates in this election: Dave Sullivan and Michael Cahillane. Both are running as Democrats, so the Democratic primary election is the only one that matters. I have no loyalty with the Democratic Party, and I normally eschew primary elections because I oppose them on principle. However, I must make an exception in this case because the Democratic primary election, which will occur next Tuesday, September 14th, is the only election that matters in this case. For the same reason, I ask that you vote in the Democratic primary election as well.

Why do I think this election is so important? Because the two candidates are very different. (Note that I have written this article completely independently of Dave Sullivan and his campaign.)

Dave Sullivan recognizes the longstanding problems in the district attorney's office's operations. Some of these problems led to their prosecuting the erroneous charges against me, Jason Vassell, and many others. He addressed the issues of rogue police officers and prosecution of erroneous charges in the debate of 08/24/2010, and he addressed the Jason Vassell case specifically in the debate of 09/01/2010. Dave Sullivan has shown a noble vision for the district attorney's and a good-sized chunk of a plan for pursuing that vision. He has expressed intentions to:

• speak out about what is right and wrong without hesitation,
• establish a policy of openness and accessibility to the press and the general public,
• establish a policy under which each case is prosecuted by a single prosecutor instead of the current policy of passing a case from one prosecutor to another depending on who happens to be in court that day.
• assign a community prosecutor to each community,
• establish an "active bystander training program" to teach citizens how to respond effectively to possible abuse or bullying,
• support strict regulations on casinos (since they will soon be legalized) to limit harm that they cause,
• establish a "casino mitigation fund", which would be paid into from casino revenue, to fund the prosecution of crime induced by casinos,
• make the defense of civil rights a high priority,
• establish a civil rights advisory board,
• prosecute rogue police officers,
• ensure that prosecutors scrutinize each case early on and continue prosecuting it only if has merit,
• oppose the death penalty (The death penalty did come very close to being re-established in Massachusetts several years ago.),
• reduce sentences for people convicted of low-impact crimes (sentencing reform), and
• reduce the time after which people convicted of low-impact crimes can have records of their conviction sealed (CORI reform).

Michael Cahillane, who currently works as a prosecutor for Elizabeth Scheibel, rather than acknowledging the longstanding problems in the district attorney's office's operations, has merely made lame and misleading attempts to justify them. He has shown no vision. He appears to have no campaign platform. From the debates, it seems to me that his entire campaign is a cop out. The number of statements of any substance that he made during the four debates can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.

So I urge you to vote for Dave Sullivan for district attorney in the Democratic primary election next Tuesday, September 14th.