Last weekend, the Springfield Republican marked the end of Hampden DA Bill Bennett’s 20-year tenure with a rather flattering article headlined: “Hampden District Attorney Bill Bennett, who leaves office after 20 years, sought justice in unjust world.” The article, by Buffy Spencer, includes words of praise for Bennett from attorneys and state police, with nary a word of criticism.
This week, blogger and veteran Springfield observer Tom Devine offered a more mixed review of Bennett’s time as the county’s top prosecutor. Devine’s headline: “Blind Justice.”
Devine’s critique (which starts with a reminder of Bennett’s famously broken promise, upon his election in 1990, that he would serve only two terms), offers limited praise for the departing DA: “Bennett deserves credit for professionalizing the office, which was run like a personal fiefdom by his scandal plagued predecessor Matty Ryan,” Devine writes. (Among those scandals: the revelation that Ryan regularly played handball with now-deceased mob boss Al Bruno.) “Frankly, it wasn’t hard for Bennett to look good following that act,” Devine adds.
Devine also gives Bennett credit for doing “a competent job prosecuting the murderers, bank robbers and other crimes committed primarily by the region’s underclass.” But he faults the DA for turning a blind eye to the public corruption that plagued Springfield in recent years, charging that Bennett allowed “high-level political crooks [to operate] with impunity during his tenure, until the FBI finally came in to clean things up.
“Bennett’s defenders say that it wasn’t his jurisdiction to pursue public corruption cases, that such prosecutions are the responsibility of the Feds,” Devine continues. “While that may be technically correct, that is a lame cop-out. The D.A. is supposed to be the primary crime fighter in the Valley, sworn to pursue wrong-doing wherever it may be found.”
With Mark Mastroianni now the county’s DA, Bennett has moved on to the private law firm of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be completely out of the public eye: Bennett continues to work for the DA’s office as a special prosecutor in the ongoing trial of Edward Fleury, the former Pelham police chief charged with manslaughter for his role in the 2008 death of an 8-year-old at a gun show he’d organized.
