Wall, Joshua I.

Judicial Biography

Year admitted to bar:

1992

Year appointed/elected:

2014, by Gov. Deval Patrick

Background

Education:

Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley.

Professional

Legal Employment History:

Wall was a Suffolk County prosecutor and chair of the Parole Board.

After enduring criticism of everything from his tactics as a Suffolk County prosecutor to his facial expressions, Wall told the Governor’s Council that a desire to serve the public has guided his career and that he was “humbled and honored” to be nominated by Gov. Deval L. Patrick for a seat on the Superior Court bench.

“I wanted to be involved in hands-on public service that delivers something meaningful to individuals,” Wall said in his confirmation hearing, describing a journey that led him from corporate and transactional work at an international law firm in New York to, ultimately, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, where he would rise to become a long-serving first assistant to DA Daniel F. Conley.

Wall said he didn’t have any knowledge of or experience with parole when Patrick tapped him to take over the Parole Board in the midst of a crisis following the board’s controversial 2011 decision to parole Dominic Cinelli, who went on to shoot and kill a Woburn police officer.

“I said yes for one reason: because I had been asked to serve,” Wall said. “I considered it my duty to say yes. The governor said, ‘We have a problem with public safety and you can help.’ I adopted the governor’s philosophy on parole and did my best to implement it.”

Citing Cinelli and other decisions by the Parole Board that would prove tragic, Wall said the public had lost faith in the board, and “the parole system could not continue to exist if it could not get better outcomes.”

Wall said his reform efforts upon taking over as chairman have included the implementation of comprehensive training programs and evidence-based agency practices, as well as an overhaul of how parolees are supervised in the community.

“Before I arrived at the Parole Board there was no requirement that a parole officer verify what had been told to him or her by a parolee,” Wall said. “Now they verify everything.”

Wall also said that, before 2011, all parolees were subjected to the same level of supervision.

“A shoplifter got the same amount of supervision as a murderer,” Wall said. “That has changed. A murderer now gets more supervision than a shoplifter.”

While time-consuming and labor-intensive, Wall said the reforms have proven effective, claiming the recidivism rate among parolees has dropped from a historical rate of 4 to 5 percent to just 2 percent, with none of the re-offenders since 2013 committing crimes that physically harmed others.

“This is unheard of — that recidivism is reduced by half by an agency in a three-year period,” Wall said.

Wall said his experience leading the Parole Board has taught him how to preside over a hearing, write a decision and other skills that would make him a good judge.
Wall’s critics, though, turned out in force for the second week in a row in an attempt to make sure he’s not confirmed.

Governor’s Council member Robert L. Jubinville summed up the quandary that will face councilors when they ultimately vote on Wall, possibly next week. He said they will have to reconcile the fact that while Wall is clearly intelligent, competent, experienced and qualified for the bench, he also has garnered an unprecedented amount of opposition from respected, longtime lawyers who are taking the risk of fighting a state judicial nomination for the first time.

“The issue is the 65 or 70 letters that talk about the way he treats people,” Jubinville said. “That’s what we have to consider. Because that goes to his demeanor as a judge.”

Council member Eileen R. Duff put it more bluntly: “It’s pretty clear people don’t like his face.”

Duff was referring to numerous complaints that Wall, in dealing with potential parolees at hearings, rolls his eyes, leans back, shakes his head, and otherwise exhibits disrespectful body language and sarcastic facial expressions.

“He doesn’t have the temperament and taste to be a fair judge and to be a judge who is going to treat everyone in his courtroom with respect,” said Boston defense lawyer Patricia L. Garin of Stern, Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin. “I don’t think there’s any reason to put someone like that on the bench.”

Garin also claimed that parolees have had to wait seven to nine months between their hearings and a decision by the board under Wall’s leadership. Garin said the previous wait time was about 60 days.

Parolee Donald Perry — who was sent back to jail for a year by Wall’s Parole Board after being accused of a crime that he was later acquitted of, and still must wear a GPS monitoring device — drew laughs when he suggested that Wall, like a rejected parole applicant, should have to wait five years and prove his temperament and demeanor have changed before being confirmed to the bench.

Also on Wednesday, other Wall critics continued to paint him as a ruthless prosecutor who crossed lines in an effort to win at all costs. Boston criminal defense attorney David J. Nathanson said on Wall’s watch as first assistant DA there was “a pattern of late discovery in Suffolk County.”

“You’re not exhibiting a judicial approach to things,” Nathanson said. “You’re exhibiting an over-the-top approach. I find that troubling for a potential judge.”
Some of Wall’s former co-workers in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office — executive assistant Lupita Donovan, prosecutor Adam J. Foss and former prosecutor Joseph M. Ditkoff — spoke in his defense Wednesday.

“Josh shows extraordinary kindness to people in crisis,” Donovan said. “Josh has a keen sense of justice. I never saw him say, ‘It’s just another case.'”