DA Meatball knew he was skewered

And so farewell, Michael “Meatball” Morrissey, the overweight, corrupt, lifelong-hack district lawyer of Norfolk County.

He’s retiring because of unwell well being. The voters acquired sick of him.

After the failure of his deranged second try and lynch Karen Learn final yr for a homicide she couldn’t have dedicated, a ballot was carried out amongst 1,100 Norfolk County residents.

Solely 4% thought the bloated 71-year-old fraud deserved reelection.

Take into consideration that – 4% favorability, after nearly 50 years in politics, coming from the most important metropolis within the county.

After the ballot got here out, the one query anyone had was, who had been these 4% who appreciated Meatball? No one knew anyone who supported this man, even the payroll patriots who “labored” for Meatball and lavished money on him to maintain their phony-baloney jobs.

You understand Morrissey needed to run once more for his $223,442-a-year job, despite the fact that he’d most likely by no means admit it.

He’s raised nothing for his marketing campaign account in 13 of the final 14 months (the one $200 contribution in 2025 got here from a lobbyist who used to work for a convicted felon Home speaker). But he nonetheless had $409,343.72 within the financial institution.

After a shot or two of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum, his electoral fantasy was to recreate the 1976 Ed Markey special-election mannequin to fill a vacant Congressional seat.

Twelve candidates ran to switch the deceased incumbent. Nobody had to surrender their seat. It was a free shot. Markey received in a landslide – with 21% of the vote.

The issue for Meatball was, solely 4 Democrats had entered the race towards him. He wanted at the very least 15 candidates within the September main to have even an out of doors shot of reaching that magic 6%-7% of the vote to prevail.

It wasn’t solely that Meatball has compiled essentially the most appalling, incompetent, corrupt file of any Massachusetts district lawyer on this century. The opposite drawback is that Norfolk County has modified.

Take a look at his hometown of Quincy. The present mayor, Tom Koch, a fellow townie hack of Meatball’s, is sort of as detested throughout the board as Morrissey.

Koch used to have iron-clad management of the Metropolis Council. However his slate was totally destroyed within the municipal elections two months in the past. He’s right down to, like, two supporters on the Council.

Identical factor in hack-infested Canton, the place Meatball’s had his workplaces all these wasted years. In fact Canton voters had essentially the most up-close-and-personal view of the utter corruption of the Karen Learn prosecution.

However the lead to Canton has been the identical as in Quincy — an utter repudiation of the tawdry good-old-boy crew.

The final McAlbert among the many selectmen, Jailbird Chris Albert, is outwardly not working for one more time period. (Not that he may have been reelected).

Former Canton selectman John “Don’t Name Me Zip” Connolly, who received the Meatball lookalike contest a couple of years again, was himself summarily ousted by the voters, after muttering underneath his breath at City Corridor about “bleeping random residents” criticizing the tried frame-up of Karen Learn.

With Morrissey nonetheless nominally working for reelection, Republicans had been making an attempt to recruit somebody to run for DA… simply in case. I imply, if Meatball had someway received the first, any GOP candidate would have been a shoo-in.

Now that chance of a Republican district lawyer, regardless of how distant, is gone.

The query is, which Democrat steps up subsequent? You all the time have candidates who take an early stand towards despicable incumbents – assume Sen. Eugene McCarthy towards LBJ in 1968. However as soon as the horrible pol is gone, stronger however extra cautious candidates emerge.

I don’t know, possibly Invoice Phelan runs. He’s a former mayor of Quincy, however regardless of that black mark towards him, he someway manages to current himself as acceptable to the county’s blow-in suburban crackpots who would by no means have voted for Meatball.

Working for sheriff, he carried the Folks’s Republic of Brookline towards Sheriff Pat McDermott (one other county hack from Quincy).

So I suppose the important thing to success might be, you’ll want that Quincy base, with out showing to be too… Quincy. Meatball has totally destroyed the Quincy model.

As fats, silly and corrupt as he’s, Meatball knew. As an illustration, he cherished marching in these parades. The final couple of years, it didn’t matter what number of of his fellow Norfolk County layabouts he surrounded himself with as he waddled down Washington Avenue or wherever, somebody would invariably acknowledge him and level him out.

“Which one is Meatball?” you’d hear somebody asking on social media.

“He’s the fats one!” would come the reply. “The fats one within the soiled jacket.”

His high assistant retired. His flack bailed. The State Police dismantled his whole “detective” unit. Trooper Michael Proctor was fired.

The one one on his workers who made profession transfer these days was the one who determined to “transition.” He, er, she, might be nominated for a judgeship by Gov. Maura Healey in three… two… one.

Bear in mind Adam Lally, the hapless prosecutor within the first kangaroo-court trial of Karen Learn. A horrible lawyer – his nickname was “the human rain-delay” – he stored his job the old style approach. He gave tons of to Meatball at his annual August fundraiser.

Poor Adam Lally — $1,750 down the drain. Did he ever transfer out of that little residence of his in Attleboro?

Norfolk County has all the time been corrupt. Framing clever guys on homicide expenses for Whitey Bulger, trying the opposite approach on a gangland hit by a BPD detective in Canton in 1976, the record of scandals is just too nice to even record all of them.

However even worse than Karen Learn was Sandra Birchmore, a pregnant 23-year-old murdered in Canton in 2021. Meatball’s workplace dominated it a suicide. It was left to the feds to indict her townie cop boyfriend.

There have been 32,000 textual content messages between Birchmore and the Stoughton cop who’d groomed her. Meatball’s State Police couldn’t discover any of them, not one. Final Might, even after the cop’s arrest, Meatball instructed the Quincy Democrat Metropolis Committee he nonetheless believed Birchmore had killed herself.

On the morning the cop was arrested, regardless of the overwhelming proof, Meatball was surprised. He texted his coatholders in shock as he watched information of the feds’ pinch on TV.

“Is there any fact to this?” Meatball Morrissey typed, nonetheless clueless in spite of everything these years.

Sandra Birchmore couldn’t be reached for remark.

Assertion from Alan Jackson

Karen Learn’s lawyer didn’t wish to let this information go. Right here’s what he instructed me: “Michael Morrissey didn’t a lot step apart as the bottom gave approach beneath him.  His resolution to not search reelection comes amid the dismantling of practically the complete Norfolk County detective unit, and the cloud of corruption that was lastly delivered to mild throughout two failed and unjust prosecutions of Karen Learn turned not possible to disregard — and Mr. Morrissey knew it.

“Mr. Morrissey acknowledged that he’s ‘extraordinarily proud’ of the workplace throughout his tenure. That speaks volumes about why public confidence in his workplace has collapsed and why his departure was not simply essential, however inevitable. Public belief within the justice system is eroded when political cronyism is rewarded over equity, when accountability is resisted, and when devastating errors are defended as an alternative of confronted. Pleasure, underneath these circumstances, is just not a advantage; it’s a warning signal.

“Karen Learn and her crew are honored to have performed a job in ushering in a brand new period — an period of fact, accountability, and independence — for Norfolk County.”

(Order Howie’s new guide on this and different associated topics, “Mass Corruption, Vol. 1: The Cops,” at amazon.com or howiecarrshow.com/books.)