Legacies of late prosecutor, defense attorney to be honored at trial advocacy awards ceremony
About a decade ago, now-retired Judge Robert N. Tochka reached his breaking point.
Newly appointed prosecutors and public defenders had been coming into his courtroom — then in Boston Municipal Court — with their advocacy skills not up to snuff, in his estimation. So, he decided to do something about it.
Tochka’s initial concept was to offer the courthouse equivalent of “after-school help” — after-hours training sessions with more seasoned practitioners.
But the idea quickly morphed into a mock trial competition in Suffolk County, where Tochka sat on the Superior Court bench from 2014 until his retirement in 2021. When other counties caught wind of the competition, the field grew bigger.
Between six and eight counties have been participating annually, according to retired Superior Court Judge Christopher J. Muse, who served on the panel of judges for this past spring’s final mock trial alongside Trial Court Chief Justice Jeffrey A. Locke and Superior Court Chief Justice Heidi E. Brieger.
As always, the competition culminated with the presentation of the Paul McLaughlin and Peter Muse Trial Advocacy Awards, given to the best prosecutor and defender, respectively.
But this year, Tochka and the other organizers decided it was time to add a new wrinkle: a party.
The first annual McLaughlin-Muse Trial Advocacy Awards ceremony will be held Friday, Nov. 3, from 6 to 10 p.m., at Florian Hall in Dorchester. Winners throughout the competition’s history will be recognized.
Admission is $35, with proceeds benefiting the Paul R. McLaughlin Youth Center at the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester. Email [email protected] with questions or to RSVP.
The event will serve to honor the winning advocates and to pay tribute to McLaughlin and Peter Muse, two esteemed practitioners whose lives ended too soon.
Paul R. McLaughlin
McLaughlin, 42, was assassinated on Sept. 25, 1995, while sitting in his car at the MBTA station in his hometown of West Roxbury. The shooter was a gang leader McLaughlin was prosecuting for carjacking, whose trial was scheduled to begin the next day.
After graduating from Dartmouth College and Suffolk University Law School, McLaughlin first joined the Essex County District attorney’s Office and then was hired, along with future Suffolk County District attorney Ralph C. Martin II, as a Middlesex County assistant DA by L. Scott Harshbarger upon his election in 1982.
McLaughlin then followed Harshbarger to the AG’s Office. At the time of his death, he was serving in a hybrid role, reporting to both Harshbarger and Martin as a special district attorney in Suffolk County, assigned to the office’s gang unit, overseeing what was known as the Safe Streets initiative.
McLaughlin’s killer, Jeffrey L. Bly, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1999 and sentenced to life without parole.
Christopher Muse says that what Bly tragically failed to appreciate was that no one in the Suffolk DA’s Office would have given him a fairer shake than McLaughlin, both during his trial and afterward.
Locke agrees. He notes that many of his colleagues considered McLaughlin to be the least likely person to be targeted for doing his job, given the pains he took not to make the work personal.
“He was not disparaging or dismissive of opposing counsel or the defendants,” Locke says. “He was just doing his public duty.”
Especially when he was practicing in the District Court, McLaughlin realized that 90 percent of the people were not bad or evil but had merely gone astray. He saw his job as a prosecutor as seeking justice for all, including the accused, Christopher Muse says.
Locke says that in the spring of 1995, while at lunch together, Locke asked McLaughlin why he never campaigned to join him at the U.S. attorney’s Office, given that “the pay is better, the hours are shorter, and the offices are bigger.”
McLaughlin acknowledged that he had given it some thought but then decided to stay put, focusing on Boston while working with the Suffolk DA.
“He said, ‘This is my community. This is where I can make a difference,’” Locke recalls.
McLaughlin also had a quick wit and “could find the humor in almost anything,” Locke says.
Case in point: As Locke was preparing to leave the Middlesex DA’s Office to join the U.S. attorney’s Office, the Department of Justice subjected Locke to a background check, conducted by the FBI. Locke says he “made the mistake” of listing McLaughlin as a reference.
“Everything went fine until [the FBI agent] asked him, ‘Is [Locke] a member of any subversive organizations?’” Locke remembers.
McLaughin couldn’t resist.
“Yes,” he replied. “The Republican Party.”
Peter J. Muse
The namesake of the other advocacy award, Peter J. Muse, was McLaughlin’s classmate in the Class of 1981 at Suffolk Law. He was rushed to Beth Israel Hospital the night before he was set to begin a murder trial and diagnosed with brain cancer.
Christopher Muse says that when he contacted his brother at the hospital, his first words were an instruction to call the judge’s office and apologize for his need to delay the trial.
Peter Muse would be transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital for emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. When he came out of surgery, doctors told him that he would need to remain in the hospital for four or five days to recuperate. Again, he was quick to tell those doctors that would not do, that he had to get back to work and try his case.
“That was his focus,” Christopher Muse says.
Peter Muse died in December 2012, at the age of 57, but not before amassing an impressive record of acquittals, including in first-degree murder cases, according to his brother.
In a tribute published in Lawyers Weekly in February 2013, John C. Prescott Jr. of the Committee for Public Counsel Services wrote about Peter Muse’s personal approach to his cases.
“Every client mattered to Peter, and they knew it,” Prescott wrote. “He fearlessly and zealously fought to defend the liberty of all his clients no matter how unpopular the cause may have been.”
Not unlike McLaughlin, Muse also had “an insatiable wit and a legendary ability to play practical jokes,” Prescott added.
While the event will honor both the winners of the competition and the memories of McLaughlin and Muse, a few kind words are sure to be directed toward Tochka, who was unavailable to speak with Lawyers Weekly before deadline.
Locke makes clear that Tochka deserves “99.9 percent” of the credit for keeping the trial advocacy competition going all these years.
The program has not only fostered the development of litigation skills, but it has helped with “building bridges of collegiality between the defense and prosecution communities,” Locke says.
The importance of Tochka’s efforts at a time when trial work is becoming a lost art cannot be overstated, Christopher Muse says.
“This is something that has to be sustained in courtrooms, as it is vital to making sure social, racial and every form of justice is had,” he says.
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