Editorial Boston travesty

In what can only be described as a travesty of justice, Ken Conley, the former Boston cop from heavily Irish Southie, has been ordered to prison to begin serving a 34-month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice.

A federal court judge ruled last week that a U.S. district court judge had erred last year when he allowed a motion for a new trial for Conley.

Conley’s original conviction stemmed from an incident in the early-morning hours of Jan. 25, 1995 when dozens of police officers pursued four murder suspects into a cul de sac in the Mattapan section. One of the officers, Michael Cox, who is black and was in plain clothes, was apparently mistaken for one of the suspects and brutally beaten by fellow officers. Eventually, three officers, one white and two black, were found liable for Cox’s injuries in a civil trial, but all escaped criminal prosecution because of the so-called "blue wall of silence." Only Conley, who continued the chase and even apprehended one of the suspects hundreds of yards from where Cox was beaten, was charged and convicted.

When confronted, other officers who had been at the scene either filed false reports or invoked their right against self-incrimination. Unable to crack this wall, prosecutors chose, for whatever reason, to go after Conley, thus adding a chapter to the proceedings as disgraceful as that written by the suddenly mute police. The result was that jurors in Conley’s 1998 trial believed the prosecution’s contention that he must have seen something and was therefore part of the conspiracy of silence.

Then, last June, the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Keeton, citing "newly discovered evidence" and "conflicts and contradictions," ordered a new trial for Conley. But the U.S. Attorney’s office appealed that ruling and the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed Keeton’s order.

Rarely has there been a more blatant case of scapegoating. Conley, who is scheduled to begin serving his sentence at the end of the month, is running out of options. He may still be able to seek a new trial through the full First Circuit or perhaps can appeal to the Supreme Court.

But it’s an outrage that he has been put in a position even to have to consider these measures. The evidence strongly suggests that Conley was a good and honest cop who did nothing more or less than perform his civic duty on that fateful morning in 1995. The only fair and honorable thing to do, in light of Judge Keeton’s concerns, is to grant Conley the new trial he deserves. The credibility of our judicial system demands nothing less.