Dan Rea | |
|---|---|
 Rea in the 1980s | |
| Born | |
| Alma mater | Boston State College (B.A., 1970) Boston University School of Law (J.D., 1974) |
| Occupation | Talk radio host |
Dan Rea is the conservative-leaning [1] [2] host of "NightSide with Dan Rea" WBZ radio, following the death of Paul Sullivan. [3]
A graduate of Boston Latin School (Class of 1966), [4] Boston State College (English major) and Boston University School of Law, Rea is a native Bostonian [5] who now lives in Newton, Massachusetts. He was born at Faulkner Hospital and grew up in Readville. [6]
Prior to his current job on WBZ Radio, Dan Rea worked as a news reporter from 1976 to 2007 on WBZ's sister station, WBZ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Boston where he won two Regional Emmys and nine Regional Emmy Nominations. [5] He also had a small role in the movie Reversal of Fortune. His present radio career is a return to WBZ Radio since he was on air there while at Boston University School of Law in the 70s. [7] At that time, Rea was a conservative activist "...serving as national vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom and opposing Richard Nixon’s re-election as president in 1972 on the grounds that he was too liberal." [8] More recently, Rea has described his views as being libertarian conservative. [1]
Rea spent four years trying to clear the name of Joe Salvati, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder. [9] Rea was able to find evidence that exonerated Mr. Salvati's name and he was released from prison. [10] For his work on the case, " the Massachusetts Bar Association honored Rea with the First Annual Excellence in Journalism Award. The Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyers Association for his efforts in the Salvati case also honored Rea." [11]
In June 1988 Rea was presented with Boston University Law School's prestigious "Silver Shingle" award for outstanding public service." [11]
In November of 2010, Rea received the "Yankee Quill Award by the Academy of New England Journalists and the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. This distinguished award is considered to be the highest individual honor awarded by fellow journalists in New England." [5]
Rea and his wife Jeanne, are parents of Daniel III and Catherine Florence. [5] Daniel Rea III is the general manager of the Worcester Red Sox. [12]
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 2.3% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.
WBZ is a Class A clear channel radio station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts. Originally started by, and formerly owned for most of its existence by, Westinghouse Broadcasting and its successor CBS Radio, WBZ is owned and operated by iHeartMedia.
Thomas Raymond Bergeron is an American television personality, game show host, television host, comedian and actor, best known for hosting Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2004, America's Funniest Home Videos from 2001 to 2015, and Dancing with the Stars from 2005 to 2019.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and imprisonment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
David Barry Brudnoy was an American talk radio host in Boston from 1976 to 2004. His radio talk show aired on WBZ radio. He was known for espousing his libertarian views on a wide range of political issues, in a manner that was courteous. Thanks to WBZ's wide signal reach, he gained a following from across the United States as well as Canada. On December 9, 2004, he succumbed to Merkel cell carcinoma after it had metastasized to his lungs and kidneys.
Dan Shaughnessy is an American sports writer. He has covered the Boston Red Sox for The Boston Globe since 1981. In 2016, he was given the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Shaughnessy is often referred to by his nickname "Shank," given by the 1980s Boston Celtics team for the often unflattering and critical nature of his articles.
Anthony Ezio Massarotti is an American newspaper sportswriter, author, online and print contributor for The Boston Globe, and a former writer for the Boston Herald. He also co-hosts a sports talk radio show on 98.5 The Sports Hub with former Boston Herald columnist Michael Felger. Massarotti is a graduate of Waltham High School in Waltham, Massachusetts, and a 1989 graduate of Tufts University, where he majored in English and Classics. He was also a member of Theta Chi fraternity. He currently resides in Sudbury, Massachusetts. On March 15, 2022, NESN announced that he would be a color commentator for Boston Red Sox games during the 2022 season.
Daniel F. Conley is an American attorney and politician who served as the district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts from 2002 to 2018. Appointed to the office in February 2002, Conley was later elected on November 5, 2002, and again in 2006, 2010, and 2014. He retired in 2018 to enter private practice.
Rob Warden is a Chicago legal affairs journalist and co-founder of three organizations dedicated to exonerating the innocent and reforming criminal justice: the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of California-Irvine, and Injustice Watch, a non-partisan, not-for-profit, journalism organization that conducts in-depth research exposing institutional failures that obstruct justice and equality. As an investigative journalist in the 1970s, he began focusing on death penalty cases, which led to a career exposing and publicizing the injustices and misconduct in the legal system. Warden's work was instrumental in the blanket commutation of death row cases in Illinois in 2003 and in the abolition of the Illinois death penalty in 2011.
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place. The transitive verb, "to exonerate" can also mean to informally absolve one from blame.
Paul Harold "Sully" Sullivan was an accomplished radio talk-show host of "The Paul Sullivan Show" on WBZ radio. He was best known for his blue-collar politics and plebeian attitude.
Jack Williams is a retired 6 PM weekday news anchor on WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts. He also founded "Wednesday's Child" in 1981, a non-profit adoption agency for special needs children.
Dan Roche is a sports anchor and reporter for WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV in Boston.
James Earl Coleman Jr. is an American attorney. He currently serves as the John S. Bradway Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility at the Duke University School of Law. He was the primary member of serial killer Ted Bundy's last defense team.
Joe Salvati, wrongfully convicted of a mob-related murder, was ultimately cleared by evidence found by Boston journalist Dan Rea. Sentenced to life in May 1968, he was released in 1997. As a result, the House Committee on Government Reform investigated whether or not the Government withheld evidence.
Dick Flavin is an American poet known as the 'poet laureate of the Boston Red Sox, as well the team's public address announcer and a former journalist, TV commentator and playwright.
Steven A. Drizin is an American lawyer and academic. He is a Clinical Professor of Law at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, where he has been on the faculty since 1991. At Northwestern, Drizin teaches courses on Wrongful Convictions and Juvenile Justice. He has written extensively on the topics of police interrogations and false confessions. Among the general public, Drizin is known for his ongoing representation of Brendan Dassey, one of the protagonists in the Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer.
The murder of Edward Charles "Teddy" Deegan occurred on March 12, 1965. Deegan was shot and killed in an alley next to an office building in Chelsea, Massachusetts at approximately 9:30 p.m.. In 1967 police charged six men with Deegan's murder, and at trial, the prosecution's primary witness was Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal informant Joseph Barboza. On July 31, 1968, the court convicted Louis Greco, Henry Tameleo, Ronald Cassesso and Peter Limone of Deegan's murder, and sentenced them to the death penalty. Joseph Salvati and Roy French were sentenced to life imprisonment as accessories to Deegan's murder. In 1997 Salvati's sentence was commuted by Governor William Weld, and in January 2001, a judge overturned Peter Limone and Joe Salvati's convictions after uncovered FBI documents proved their innocence. In 2004, Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that federal lawsuits by the families of Louis Greco, Henry Tameleo, Peter Limone and Joseph Salvati had permission to be filed against the United States Government, and in 2007 a landmark decision ordered the United States Government to pay $101.7 million to the accused and their families for wrongful conviction. The use of FBI informants for the wrongful conviction of four innocent men is noteworthy because it unveiled the corrupt activities that occurred in the FBI during the 1960s.
Outcry is a 2020 documentary mini-series written and directed by Pat Kondelis, about the real-life story of high school football star Greg Kelley, who was arrested, convicted and jailed for sexual assault of a 4-year-old boy, as well as his support system that pushed back in their quest for truth and justice. The Showtime mini-series premiered on July 5, 2020.