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Kerry worked as a student prosecutor in the Middlesex district for John Droney until he passed the bar. Kerry handled minor cases before juries of six, winning all the cases he prosecuted. His first big felony trial was a rape case in which the defendant was presented by William Homans, a prominent Boston defense lawyer. Kerry secured a guilty verdict. "I'm glad to say I never lost a case in Middlesex", Kerry said.
Less than a month later, District Attorney Droney promoted Kerry to the position of first assistant, giving him free rein to overhaul the office and stunning many staff veterans. Many of Droney's assistants were resentful. Droney's attention was increasingly focused on his upcoming reelection in 1978. Kerry said, "The promotion shocked me too. I was surprised. John wanted to run for reelection the next year and he knew there were some issues in the office."
Droney was afflicted by Lou Gehrig's disease. Although his mind was sharp, his speech and mobility were impaired. In early 1978, Kerry was prepared to run for district attorney if Droney's illness forced him to bow out.
In the meantime, Kerry set about transforming a plodding hidebound operation into modern, efficient DA office that would help Droney's reelection effort, "John Kerry in effect became the legs and voice that John Droney no longer had" , recalled Peter W. Agnes Jr., then a young lawyer in the office and now a superior court judge. "He provided youth, vitality, and charisma."
With $3.8 million infusion of federal funds he help obtain, Kerry nearly tripled the staff, and many of the new hires were women. He launched initiatives that were innovative at the time: special units to prosecute white collar and organized crime, programs to council rape victims and aid other crime victims and witnesses, and a system for fast tracking priority cases to trial. Kerry said, "Some people didn't like the modernization process, didn't want it, and obviously felt they were more qualified and some were. But we changed the office."
By late 1977 Kerry was directing the investigation that led to the first conviction of Somerville's Howie Winter, one of the state's notorious gangster's. Winters was sentenced to two consecutive nine year sentences in prison after being convicted in a scheme to force local businesses to install their clubs pinball machines owned by a gang associate.
Kerry stepped out of his administrative duties and stepped into the courtroom to try several cases, and he won convictions in a murder and high profile rape case. Robert Barton, the court appointed defense lawyer in the murder case and who later became a trial judge, called Kerry "as good a trial lawyer as I ever saw."
Kerry also won a rape conviction and a thirty year prison sentence for George O. Edgerly, a former service manager at a Lowell auto dealership. Edgerly was later convicted of murder in another county in connection with the 1974 slaying of a General Motors executive investigating excessive warranty claims at the dealership.
Droney barely staved off the Harshbarger challenge in the primary, which was tantamount to victory with no Republican in on the ballot in Nov. Droney because of his ailment did not campaign and gave no interviews until the campaigns final days. Harshbarger did not concede defeat until the paper ballot returns, still being reported sixteen hours after the polls closed, showed Droney pulling ahead.
Harshbarger went to Droney's office after his concession. It was the first time the two had met. But after reelection, Droney appeared reinvigorated, and by the end of 1979 it was becoming clear Kerry's day's were numbered. Droney instituted new office policies, some of them petty, and suspended Kerry's secretary and two of his proteges for relatively minor fractions. "It became obvious in '79 that Droney was sort of feeling better, and that he began to say, "I don't want this, I don't want to do that," Kerry recalled. Kerry decided it was time to leave. Kerry remained friends with Droney until his death in 1989. Many prosecutors in the office at the time believed Droney was trying to push Kerry out in part because his top aide was obviously seeking to win the top job for himself.
After his reelection Droney returned to a office bitterly divided in its loyalties. The Kerry people and the Droney people. While Droney loyalists resented Kerry, he also had had strong supporters. "I won't say everyone loved Kerry, but he was always there and probably the most natural trial lawyer on his feet I ever saw," said J. William Codinha, who succeed Kerry as first assistant and a remaining a close friend. "There's no way John Droney would have been reelected without John Kerry."
Kerry certainly modernized the DA office, but he embellished his legacy in later years. Kerry wiped out 7,265 criminal cases during his tenure at the DA's office. After the Droney crackdown on Kerry loyalist, Kerry decided it was time to move on and he resigned.
Kerry and Roanne Sragow, an assistant DA, who was among those suspended by Droney, opened their own practice setting up shop at a prestigious Boston address, a sky scraper at 60 State Street. Over the next two and a half years the pair built a successful practice, specializing in litigation involving wrongful deaths, medical malpractice, corporate trade secrets, and what Kerry described as "a string of relatively notorious hair implication cases."
Kerry developed a disparate set of sidelines, join WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliation Boston, as a regular public affairs commentator on the weekly program five at 5. By 1981 Kerry's law practice was doing very well. Then the lieutenant governor was coming open and Kerry decided to run.
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