Sheriff McCormack’s Bad Call
The night of June twelfth Two Thousand and Nine is one the entire Vineyard community would like to erase from its memory but of course cannot, because that was the night that Jena Pothier, age eighteen, died in a tragic car automobile accident on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road. The driver of the car was seventeen-year-old Kelly McCarron, Jena’s friend. Ms. McCarron was drunk that night; her blood alcohol levels later tested out at three times the legal limit. Ms. McCarron was injured in the crash and recovered. Last May she pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, with one year to be served in the Barnstable House of Correction for Women.
Last week the news surfaced that Dukes County Sheriff Michael McCormack had quietly allowed Ms. McCarron to cut short her time served in Barnstable. Just before Christmas Ms. McCarron came home to the Vineyard, where she will be allowed to serve the last five months of her prison term at home wearing an electronic monitoring device on her ankle.
And deep wounds that have only just begun to heal have been painfully slashed open.
Sheriff McCormack’s decision came over the strong objections of David and Terry Pothier, Jena’s parents, who participated as victims in the plea bargain that resulted in Ms. McCarron’s sentencing. And he handled things badly, first meeting with the Pothiers and telling them he would not allow Ms. McCarron an early release, and later changing his mind but failing to contact the Pothiers to tell them.
A letter was sent through the postal service just before Christmas but the Pothiers were away and not home to receive it. It is stunning to think that Sheriff McCormack, who claims he agonized over the decision, never picked up the telephone to call the Pothiers and tell them in person about it. What about their agony? Did it occur to the sheriff that the Pothiers would receive this news badly? Did he think about them at all?
Or was the sheriff simply acting inside his old-boy network where things are taken care of quietly, no need to make waves, the less said publicly the better.
Sheriff McCormack won reelection in November in a hard-fought contest that saw some of the practices of his office come under intense scrutiny.
It’s too bad the sheriff took no lessons to heart from that election.
This article appears in January 21, 2011.
This does not address the basic unfairness that we have no facility for women to be detained on island. The result is that Vineyard women pay a much larger debt than men, and their families are more greatly burdened. It can’t be impossible to resolve this injustice at the heart of our justice system. What about a simple demountable women’s dormitory at the existing facility?
only in Mass can the accused have more rights than the victims
Let us not forget,her actions caused a loss of life. Too bad she had to go to jail off Island. The Sheriff made the wrong call and hopefully the Voters will remember that at the next election. Was the message ” if you wanna kill someone and get away with it, get drunk and do it with a car?” If that was it, great job!
When McCormack was running for re-election he made a statement that just because someone was a police officer it didn’t mean they would make a good sheriff. Was that in reference to Neal, Warren, or himself? After all McCormack was a Police Officer in OB before he joined the Sheriffs department.
For starters, you got the date of the accident wrong…not to mention leaving out many other important facts…probably because you don’t have the facts..which is true of most of the people that have left hateful responses to this and other articles. There are several people who should be taking responsibilty for that night, which by the way , was June 11th, not the 12th.The person that bought the alcohol, the person(s) who let teenagers drink at their house that night and let them leave knowing they had been drinking( and yes I do know who these people are)and of course Kelly, who seems to be the only one who has stepped up and completely owned her part in this terrible accident. She has been paying and will continue to pay the price her entire life. Her mental and physical health have suffered greatly as a result, and if anyone thinks she doesnt suffer with this daily, then you don’t know her and should not judge. Please keep your horrible ,hateful opinions to yourself and let this young woman try to recover and live her life.