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 "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. [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 1% 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 commercial AM radio station, licensed to Boston, Massachusetts, and owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. Its studios and offices are located on Cabot Road in the Boston suburb of Medford.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment 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.
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.
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.
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 individuals 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.
Steve Buckley is an American journalist and long-time sports writer who formerly wrote for the Boston Herald. In 2018, he joined sports website The Athletic.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Jordan Rich was the host of The Jordan Rich Show on WBZ-AM 1030 in Boston, Massachusetts., a mix of history, arts, pop culture, and other topics. Parts of the shows are carried by WCCO (AM) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He retired after the July 3, 2016 show in order to spend more time with his family.
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.
Dan Roche is a sports anchor and reporter for WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV in Boston for over 20 years.
The Illinois Innocence Project, a member of the national Innocence Project network, is a non-profit legal organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
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 was an American poet known as the "poet laureate of the Boston Red Sox", as well the team's public address announcer and a journalist, television 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 television miniseries written and directed by Pat Kondelis, about the real-life story of high school football star Greg Kelley, who was arrested, wrongfully 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.
Anthony Joseph Dolff, was farmer in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, who was killed in 1993. He was stabbed 17 times, hit on the head with a television, and strangled with a telephone cord. Three Saulteaux people, members of the Keeseekoose First Nation, were convicted of the crime. One, Jason Keshane, 14 years old at the time of the crime, confessed to the killing and as a juvenile was sentenced to two years in prison for second degree murder. His cousins, sisters Nerissa and Odelia Quewezance, 19 and 21 at the time, were sentenced to life in prison. Neither confessed and both have maintained their innocence at all times. Dolff had been a maintenance man at the residential school the two sisters attended. That night they reportedly drank a great deal of liquor and took prescription sleeping pills at Dolff's house, where he pestered them for sex. When he discovered that Odelia had taken money from his bedroom, a violent confrontation took place, in the course of which he was killed.