The Honorable Rachael Splaine Rollins ’94

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Splaine Rollins ’94 has broken through the proverbial glass ceiling more than once. She is the first woman in Suffolk County history to be elected as DA and the first woman of color ever to serve as a Massachusetts DA. As the chief law enforcement official for Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop, she oversees 300 people that handle about 35,000 new cases each year. To honor her manifold achievements, Rollins was awarded the Excellence in Service Award for her significant contributions of service to her community.

Rollins received a lacrosse scholarship to attend UMass Amherst and successfully fought to reinstate women’s lacrosse and other sports when they were eliminated due to budget constraints. Rollins and others from the disbanded teams threatened the university with a suit under Title IX, the law that requires publicly funded institutions to provide equal athletic opportunities to men and women, and UMass reinstated the programs in 1992.

That experience put her on the path to a career in law. After graduating with majors in Afro-American studies and education, she studied law at Northeastern and Georgetown. And Rollins has kept her fighting spirit. Since her election to DA in 2018, she has pledged to reduce incarceration, correct racial and ethnic disparities, adopt alternatives to traditional prosecution, focus limited resources on serious and violent crimes, and improve relationships between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.
 
Rollins implemented a policy of presumptively dismissing and/or diverting certain low-level misdemeanor charges that are often symptomatic not of criminal intent but of mental illness, substance use disorder, and poverty. Rollins holds them accountable while providing access to services and treatment. This progressive approach is designed to reduce the likelihood that an individual will re-offend and improve the safety and wellbeing of impacted communities. Another of her initiatives is the first-in-nation Discharge Integrity Team that helps investigate officer-involved shootings and allegations of excessive force. The Team consists of a community member, a criminal defense attorney, a retired judge, and a member of law enforcement.  Rollins also created an Integrity Review Bureau that looks not only at post-conviction claims of actual innocence but also reviews unconstitutional, unethical, and unjust convictions, as well as sentencing disparities.