A judge has issued a final ruling denying new trials for two men appealing their convictions on the grounds that an alleged affair between a former top judge in New Bedford District Court and a prosecutor for the Bristol County District Attorney’s office compromised their rights to a fair trial.
The judge also denied defense attorney James McKenna’s motion to obtain the accused judge’s cell phone records and records of the Massachusetts Trial Court’s investigation into the alleged affair.
The ruling leaves many questions unanswered and dashes the attempts of McKenna, the state’s public defender’s agency and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLUM) to gain transparency into a case that the state’s Trial Court and DA’s office have played close to the chest.
“ACLUM strongly believes that transparency … is essential to protecting the rights of the potentially impacted defendants and protecting the integrity of the criminal legal system,” the civil rights organization wrote in a Feb. 6 letter to the court supporting McKenna’s now denied motion.
McKenna today said that he has filed an appeal with the Supreme Judicial Court — arguing that the DA’s office and the state’s Trial Court failed in their duty to thoroughly investigate the allegations of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.
Alleged affair
Allegations of an affair between Douglas Darnbrough, then first justice of New Bedford District Court, and a prosecutor for the DA’s office first surfaced in September of 2023 in a series of anonymous letters sent to top court officials and attorneys. Though unsubstantiated, the letters claimed Darnbrough concealed the alleged affair while continuing to preside over cases prosecuted by his alleged romantic partner.
Shortly after the anonymous letters circulated, Darnbrough stopped appearing in court. A Trial Court spokesperson at the time said he was on “vacation.” When he returned, he was transferred from New Bedford to Plymouth District Court, where he sat for less than one month before tendering his resignation to the state.
McKenna is representing two men convicted in New Bedford District Court last year. One is Gerson Pascual-Santana, who was convicted of molesting a child under the age of 14. The other is Jonathan Rascao, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled person. Each is serving out a 2½-year sentence.
In both cases, Darnbrough served as presiding judge while his alleged romantic partner in the DA’s office served as prosecutor. McKenna appealed their convictions, claiming that the alleged affair “fatally compromised” their right to a fair trial.
The appeals were part of an investigation by the public defender’s special projects unit, and had the potential to jeopardize convictions in more than a hundred other cases presided over by Darnbrough and prosecuted by the same ADA.
Unanswered questions
The judge denied McKenna’s request for a new trial because, as he cited in his ruling, the “claims rest almost exclusively on the anonymous, unsigned, and unsworn notes.”
In court hearings, however, McKenna argued that his ability to gain more evidence was obstructed by the failure of the DA’s office and the Trial Court to share potential evidence in their possession.
McKenna’s appeal succumbed to what amounts to a legal “Catch-22.” A new trial was denied due to lack of evidence because the judge denied his motions that could have produced such evidence.
The judge’s ruling now means that the Trial Court does not have to turn over records of its investigation into the alleged affair — leaving questions raised by McKenna and the ACLUM unanswered.
McKenna argued that there is still no clear explanation for Darnbrough’s resignation. Darnbrough’s lawyer at the time cited health reasons. But McKenna cast doubt on the judge’s timeline at a Jan. 5 court hearing — probing why, if suffering from ill-health, Darnbrough was first transferred to Plymouth District Court.
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“When someone resigns because of health reasons, first, they’re not transferred to Plymouth,” McKenna argued at a Jan. 5 court hearing.
The ACLUM also made clear its position that elements of the case and the allegations of misconduct remain unclear. It raised concern about what it described as “evolving, inconsistent assertions” made by the DA’s office.
The DA’s office initially claimed in the Jan. 5 court hearing that it had conducted an internal investigation and found “no evidence” of a sexual relationship between Darnbrough and its prosecutor. However, after the judge ordered the DA’s office to release a summary of that investigation, it walked back the claim — revealing the DA’s office had not conducted an investigation into the alleged affair at all.
Instead, the DA’s office said that the state’s Trial Court was the only one to conduct an investigation into the allegations of misconduct. The DA’s office said that it made their employees available to cooperate with the Trial Court’s investigation. But few details of the Trial Court’s investigation were shared by the DA’s office.
Based on the judge’s ruling, details of the Trial Court’s investigation will now remain sealed.
The DA’s office also stated in their summary that the anonymous letters were part of a smear campaign aimed at harassing its prosecutor.
The DA’s office released a statement Thursday in support of the judge’s ruling. “The judge clearly credited our representations and found the defendant’s filings in this matter were ‘speculative, uncorroborated and conclusory in nature,’” District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III wrote.
The Light is not publishing the name of the prosecutor because the only reference to her is in the anonymous letters. Her name is not used in the court hearings or the DA’s report.
McKenna said the case is not over. He filed an appeal Thursday in state Supreme Judicial Court.
“The game of hide-and-seek is unworthy of the ideals of our system of constitutional justice,” McKenna wrote in his now-denied motion. “The Commonwealth cannot sit by as a bystander and say, ‘there may be truth here, but we’re not going to look for it.’”
Email reporter Will Sennott at wsennott@newbedfordlight.org.
Informative article. It addresses contemporary issue.