The standing District of Attorney of Middlesex County, Marian T. Ryan shared her thoughts on many topical issues of concern with The Somerville Times.

By Jeremy F. van der Heiden

This is the third part of a three-part series for The Somerville Times interview with Middlesex County District Attorney Marian T. Ryan.

Now that we have discussed Middlesex County District Attorney Marian T. Ryan’s back story, thoughts on Somerville, the county and the state at large, we will move directly into the final portion of this series, in which the conversation turns to broader topics.

As a reminder, D.A. Ryan will be running for election to maintain her position this fall.

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The Somerville Times: From an ideological standpoint, what is your mission as an official?

D.A. Ryan: The core mission of the District Attorney’s Office is the protection of public safety. We are that line, working with police and other law enforcement departments in the prosecution process to keep people safe. And second to that – what has become really a big piece in our office – is the prevention, deterrents, education and that whole other piece of it.

TST: So, comprehensively taking care of public safety.

D.A.R: Yes.

TST: Do you believe that there is any area of the law or policy that needs adjustment?

D.A.R: You know, the law changes, we’ve seen an enormous change, for instance, just in terms of computers. When I started in the D.A.’s office we weren’t worrying about people doing identity theft. We weren’t worried about people stalking people over the Internet.

So, the law evolves to keep up … the law changes all the time. And it should – the law is supposed to be a living thing. It’s supposed to grow and reflect society.

TST: So it has to be agile?

D.A.R.: Yes.

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As the District Attorney is campaigning to resume her position in the upcoming elections, we later dove into direct policy positions and her general stance as an elected official.

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TST: Is there anything you would like to talk about?

D.A.R: I say all the time, a big part of my work as District Attorney is really informed by growing up in Somerville. Somerville is a great place to grow up, and you learn to be accountable, you learn to be accountable. I grew up here, as I said, when nobody really had a whole lot, but people looked out for people, you know who lived in your neighborhood and helped out, figured out ways to get people what they needed.

Also, when you did something wrong you were accountable for that, people knew who people were and if your parents didn’t know it then someone else’s parents did.

So that’s the kind of background that I bring to this, that idea that the community needs to be safe, people need to feel safe. You help people when they need help. It goes to that addiction issue – you try to make a difference. I grew up here thinking that you go to school, you better yourself to make a difference. That’s why I went to the D.A.’s office, and that philosophy hasn’t changed in all the time I’ve been doing this.

TST: What do you think about Sullivan running against you?

D.A.R: I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for me, because I’m very proud of the people who work for me – I’m very proud of the things we do. I think I bring a lot of important attributes to this office. You know, this is my first time running in a race, campaigning has been a great opportunity to get out and talk to people. Everyone knows the [D.A.’s] office because they prosecute people, but they don’t know the great work we do. And they don’t know that and then they do not subsequently go out and take advantage of it.

TST: On your campaign, what do you think people are going to be looking for?

D.A.R: I think this is a job where experience matters, because what’s true of this job – it certainly has been true for the last 15 months – I was appointed in the middle of the April bombings, so within my first 36 hours, it was the question of if we were going to indict the Tsarnaev brother for the murder of Officer Collier for the Watertown piece.

Very quickly after that, we had the poisoning of the witness in the Bulger trial. Shortly after that we had the murder-suicide in Arlington that was the mother, father and twins. We have had a number of other homicides along the way.We had the plane crash in Bedford. Last week we had the seven people who died in the fire in Lowell.

And this is that kind of a job. That’s the piece that is something I’m very used to. I really bring to this job that ability to figure out what’s going to happen. I have to be taking that long view of five or ten years down the road. Are we building our case? Is our evidence going to be admissible? What’s going to happen? What happens in that immediate aftermath – how people are Mirandized. How the evidence was gathered, whether you get the video tapes and all of that, determines how your case is going to go way down the road.

It’s also a feature of having done it for years. I have that ability to pull the group of investigators together, to marshal that. They respect my opinion, they know I’m looking down the road. Our goal is to have a successful prosecution if that’s what is warranted. So that’s a big piece of what I bring to this.

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As a note, we asked D.A. Ryan whether she was for the privatization of the prison system and her take on the full legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts. In response, she stated that more research needs to be done to decide the right path forward for both of these topics, especially to decide a clear line of policies and accurately understand what the potential outcomes would entail, before she could come to a conclusive stance.

We once again thank D.A. Ryan for her time and wish her the best of luck in the forthcoming election.

The Somerville Times will be working to interview as many candidates in the upcoming November elections as possible. Please check back for more soon.