Gerald Mollen - Why Vote for Jerry?

WHY GERALD MOLLEN DESERVES TO BE RE-ELECTED DISTRICT ATTORNEY:

Over the course of his thirty year career as an Assistant DA, Senior Assistant DA, Chief Assistant DA and as District Attorney, Gerald Mollen has prosecuted some of the most heinous crimes committed in Broome County, demonstrating the talent, skill and dedication needed to be a successful trial prosecutor. But being District Attorney requires more than just being a successful trial attorney - it requires leadership in the office, with law enforcement agencies and in the community at large. And it requires the intelligence, wisdom and foresight to recognize and address challenges presented in the criminal justice system, whether the rise in child and family abuse and gang-related crime in the community or need for more sophisticated, higher quality criminal investigations.

Over the thirty years of his career, Mollen's commitment to fighting crime and protecting the most vulnerable members of our community has led to some of the most progressive advances in law enforcement in Broome County and New York State. For all these reasons, Gerald Mollen deserves to be re-elected Broome County District Attorney.

MOLLEN'S EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF PROSECUTION:

In 1984, when Broome County witnessed a disturbing rise in child abuse homicides, Mollen was a founding member of the Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council and worked to create a multidisciplinary team to review problematic cases and examine system responses to abuse cases. The Multi-Disciplinary Child Abuse Review Team, which Mollen co-chairs and which consists of representatives of the legal, medical, educational, social services, victim assistance and mental health fields, continues to meet monthly to discuss child abuse, child sexual abuse and elder abuse cases. As a result of the success of this team approach to abuse investigations and with Mollen's leadership and support, Broome County became one of the first counties in upstate New York to establish a Child Advocacy Center. In addition, Mollen became part of a Child Fatality Review Team established in 2010 to review the circumstances of all child deaths occurring in Broome County. This team is dedicated to the mission of learning how to reduce preventable child deaths in our community.

Under Mollen's leadership, all Broome County law enforcement agencies also adopted "pro-arrest" protocols for domestic violent cases - four years before mandatory arrest laws were enacted in the state. Mollen participated in community efforts to address the problem of domestic violence, supporting and participating in the creation of the Family Violence Prevention Council in 1997, replacing and expanding the mission of the highly effective Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council.

In 2001, when law enforcement officials began to detect the presence of gangs in the community, Mollen worked with officials to create the Broome County Gang Task Force, adopting the same team problem-solving approach to this growing problem in the community. Five years later, the NYS Commission of Investigation recommended a similar anti-gang strategy for other upstate counties. In addition, Mollen authorized the use of property forfeiture funds to create a "security risk group data base" which allows law enforcement officials to share intelligence about gang activity and gang membership in Broome County.

MOLLEN'S WORK WITH PROSECUTORS AROUND THE STATE:

In response to an evidence-tampering scandal in the early '90's and concerns expressed by jurors being debriefed after certain trials, Mollen first studied and then implemented the practice of start-to-finish recording of suspect interviews by police in certain major felony cases. As a result of his foresight and leadership, Broome County became one of the first counties in New York to implement these procedures in many major felony cases.

Since then, Mollen has lectured extensively on the Broome County experience and has made a number of presentations to District Attorney's Office and law enforcement agencies considering the adoption of such practices. In addition, in February 2009, Mollen was invited to address the New York State Bar Association's Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. In his remarks to the committee, Mollen described the process by which he worked to implement this practice and persuade law enforcement officers of its effectiveness. It is Mollen's belief that the start-to-finish recording of suspect interviews is the best way to capture the dynamics of the interview, including the subtleties of the suspect's demeanor and the details of the suspect's admissions, while relieving the investigating officers of the burden at later pre-trial hearings and at trial of describing all the significant details of the interrogation. The practice also results in fewer or substantially shorter pre-trial hearings and provides juries with the best evidence on which to base their verdicts. And most importantly, as Mollen stated, "recording in such cases helps us to achieve those central goals of protecting the innocent and convicting the guilty."

In his remarks to the NYSBA Task Force, Mollen also commented on that committee's draft proposals regarding eyewitness identification evidence. In Broome County, investigators in the District Attorney's Office conduct almost all line-up proceedings, using policies and procedures developed and refined over the years by Mollen and his investigative staff. The procedures, which include careful documentation through written instructions to witnesses, audio-recording of the proceedings and photographs of the line-up, were designed to address defense concerns of the suggestiveness inherent in identification proceedings, while recognizing the limited resources available to our office and other law enforcement agencies.

In 2009, Mollen joined the newly created Best Practices Subcommittee of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York Committee on The Fair and Ethical Administration of Justice. As a member of the committee, Mollen has been instrumental in developing state-wide policies and procedures for recording suspect interviews and conducting in-person line-ups in criminal cases. These policies and procedures, which are nearly identical to practices in place in Broome County for over a decade, will improve the quality of prosecutions and increase the confidence of citizens in the criminal justice system.