Kevin Hayden must carry forward the mandate for progressive reform in Suffolk DA’s office

Rachael Rollins will be making history Monday when she is sworn in as US attorney for Massachusetts, the first Black woman to hold the job.

But she’s leaving big shoes to fill in the Suffolk County district attorney’s office, the position she was elected to a little over three years ago. Not only was she also the first Black woman in that office, but she also was able to make historic progress vis-à-vis criminal justice reform.

It is in that context that the appointment of Rollins’s replacement in the DA’s office should be seen. Governor Charlie Baker announced Wednesday he selected Kevin Hayden, who currently chairs the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board, to serve out the remainder of Rollins’s term in the Suffolk DA’s office.

The question on a lot of people’s minds is: Will Hayden bring to the job a prosecutorial philosophy similar to Rollins’s, or will he be a more traditional prosecutor? Suffolk County voters, in electing Rollins, already telegraphed their preference. It’s why the new interim district attorney must carry forward the voters’ mandate of progressive reform.

That’s also why some in the legal community felt that Rollins should stay in the DA’s office. In a Globe letter to the editor published in October, a retired Cambridge District Court judge urged Rollins to reject the federal offer. “[T]he communities of color within Suffolk County need your presence. Your mission here is not complete,” Severlin B. Singleton III wrote. The retired Black judge argued Suffolk County voters elected Rollins three years ago because they wanted a fairer criminal justice system. “They were frustrated with the old way, and with years of district attorneys — mostly white males — who appealed to their base to get reelected through incarceration and more incarceration,” he wrote.

Even though Singleton’s plea is now moot, his larger point still stands, and echoes a similar sentiment from others working to reform the criminal justice system in the region. That’s because Rollins was largely successful in her efforts to reform the DA’s office, and it would be disappointing to see that progress squandered.

“One of the things that made Rachael an effective district attorney is that she really executed with fidelity the progressive vision that she articulated while on the campaign trail,” said Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP. (Sullivan had reportedly been a finalist for the interim appointment, but she declined to comment on that.) “Voters truly did send her into office with a mandate for change with respect to the prosecutorial ideology of that office. And she delivered.”

Little is known about Hayden’s criminal justice positions. Does he subscribe to the principles of the social and racial justice movements that Rollins upholds? What are his exact views on police accountability? These are not questions about his competence, fitness, and qualifications for the job, or commitment to public service. Instead, advocates for criminal justice reform legitimately wonder if he’ll try to stall, or even roll back, some of Rollins’s boldest progressive policies. (Hayden wasn’t available for an interview.)

Legal observers and advocates like Sullivan are quick to praise Rollins’s record. “She focused on the prosecution of major violent crimes, she used the conviction integrity unit to get justice for those who were wrongfully convicted, and she championed policies that looked for alternatives for incarceration,” Sullivan said in an interview.

Crucially, Rollins’s work — ultimately aimed at what she said was stopping a “freight train moving toward mass incarceration of poor people and Black and brown people” — has been vindicated. Take one of her most controversial moves: her decline-to-prosecute list of 15 nonviolent, low-level crimes, like shoplifting and larceny. The intent is to abandon an overreliance on tough-on-crime tactics as a deterrent mechanism and instead focus on policies that divert defendants away from the criminal justice system and toward social service programs. She was right in believing in that approach. A recent first-of-its-kind study that analyzed roughly 15 years of criminal complaints data in Suffolk County showed that defendants not prosecuted for low-level nonviolent crimes are less likely to get arrested on a new criminal complaint.

Hayden, who formerly worked as an assistant district attorney, will have an enviable advantage should he decide to run for the permanent role in the Nov. 8 election. It’s natural to expect he will “cut his own path,” as former Suffolk County district attorney Daniel Conley, who was Hayden’s boss for six years during his tenure as DA, put it in comments to the press. Conley also said he expects Hayden “to pursue a more traditional prosecutor’s role, one that is victim-centered and focused on serving victims and keeping neighborhoods as safe as they possibly can be.”

Compare that statement with Rollins’s views that she not only represents the victim but also the defendant. There is a balance, and Rollins has proved that a system overly tilted toward prosecution is unnecessary and often unjust.

Marcela García can be reached at ma************@gl***.com. Follow her on Twitter @marcela_elisa.