Michael A. Cahillane aims to parlay trial experience into DA post
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NORTHAMPTON - Northwestern district attorney is the job Michael A. Cahillane has always wanted. And from his perspective, having worked his way up through the district attorney's office over more than 10 years, he's more than paid his dues.
In a recent interview with the Gazette, Cahillane answered this way when asked what makes him the best candidate for district attorney: "It's the only job I want to do," he said. "This is it for me."
A Northampton native, Michael Anthony Cahillane, 40, declared his candidacy June 10, 2009. That was the day after Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, Cahillane's former boss, announced she wouldn't seek re-election.
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Cahillane and others close to him say it's been a somewhat rocky transition from the courtroom to the campaign trail. Luckily Cahillane has his whole family behind him - and the Cahillanes are a big family.
His dad, Michael T. Cahillane, or "Mike Sr.," sells cars at Lia Toyota in Northampton, and serves on the board of trustees at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. At campaign events he hands out business cards identifying himself as the "father of the candidate."
Although his grandfather was mayor of Northampton in the 1970s and his college major was political science, Michael Cahillane seems to chafe at politicking.
His often-repeated slogan is "I'm a prosecutor, not a politician," and he jokes his only other foray into the political arena was as "mayor of kindergarten" at the Feiker School.
Cahillane said he finds asking people for campaign donations difficult. And he's described as "hurtful" criticisms about his having signed an anti-gay marriage petition in 2005 (something he's since called a "mistake") and joining in jokes about Athol during a radio interview (though he says he meant Athol no offense).
The criticisms flabbergasted their mother, Florence "Flo" Cahillane, a dental assistant in Granby. "He has always been the most fair, the most unbiased," she said.
"For him to grow into the role of a politician ... I think has been difficult for him because he's so humble," said his sister, Cherie Bishop, a Boston dentist.
But watching him give his stump speech at a fundraiser in Hadley in August, effortlessly mixing lighthearted humor with the gravitas one expects from a district attorney, Bishop said her brother seemed to have grown into the role quite well.
Early taste of DA's office
As a young man Cahillane worked in the family auto body shop on Damon Road, progressing from floor sweeper to tow truck driver.
He got his first taste of the district attorney's office in 1988, just after he graduated from Northampton High School. As an intern that summer and the next, Cahillane worked with the office's longtime court administrator Ann Metzger keeping track of prosecutors' schedules and paperwork.
After graduating from St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Cahillane went on to earn his law degree at Suffolk University in Boston in 1999. During and after his legal studies, Cahillane worked in health care, first at insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield, then as senior claims analyst at the law firm Beacon Recovery Group.
Scheibel hired him in 2000, and he started out prosecuting criminal cases in Orange District Court.
That same year he married Christine Capers. The Capers and the Cahillanes are old friends who attended Blessed Sacrament Church together. Although Christine is four years her husband's junior, they followed the same course from Northampton schools to St. Anselm to Suffolk.
Christine Cahillane continues to work on the legal side of health care as a paralegal for Liberty Mutual in Springfield. She also works part-time as an agent with Goggins Real Estate.
The couple have two former racing greyhounds, Blue, 13, and Gracie, 11. Christine Cahillane said she convinced her husband to adopt the dogs about nine years ago after learning 20,000 racing dogs are euthanized every year. The couple went on to circulate petitions to put a ban on dog racing on the state ballot. Voters supported the ban in 2008.
In his spare time Cahillane plays the drums and enjoys jogging. "That's my stress relief," he said. "That's where I do a lot of my thinking."
A prosecutor's path
Scheibel in 2004 promoted Cahillane to the superior courts. In that time he's worked out plea deals in some of the region's most serious cases, from child pornography to armed kidnapping.
Cahillane was lead prosecutor in one trial that resulted in a 39- to 45-year sentence for a man who shot his cousin in a Florence apartment in 2006. He also backed up other prosecutors in two murder trials - those of Nathan Ruell of Ware in 2009 and Robin Anthony Hoose of Greenfield this year - helping win convictions and life sentences in both.
He's also had a managerial role in the office, supervising junior prosecutors and victim advocates and serving on the hiring committee.
In recent years he's also been one of the office's public faces, sent out to go on camera when arson and bullying brought the media hordes to town.
Early on the morning of Dec. 27, 2009, while Cahillane was on Cape Cod celebrating Christmas with his extended family, he was called back to Northampton to help guide the investigation of a string of suspicious fires around Ward 3 east of downtown.
When he returned home to Bridge Street after the first long day on the case, Cahillane said he took down the Christmas wreath on his door, afraid someone would light it on fire, as had been done on Crescent Street.
"In addition to being on the ground and working the case, it also was a very difficult experience for me because it was my neighborhood," Cahillane said. "It was very different to feel like a victim, or a potential victim ... I know exactly how people in Northampton were feeling because I was feeling it myself."
The campaign
Cahillane resigned from his job June 11 to devote himself to the campaign full time. His salary at the time was $73,000.
By that point Cahillane had raised only half as much money as his opponent. Under the law, public employees can't campaign while on the clock and can't fundraise at all - that can only be done by a campaign committee. The rule doesn't apply to elected officials.
"He was devastated when he had to turn in his resignation," Christine Cahillane said. "It was one of the hardest things for him."
Now that Cahillane is out of the office, losing the election could mean losing his dream job. Asked about that, Cahillane doesn't flinch. "My plan obviously is to be back in that office," he said.
His wife is more pragmatic, noting Cahillane has had job offers in the past from private law firms. "I say win, lose or draw, we're going to be fine," she said.
James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.
