Josh Wall Speaks at Winchester Chamber of Commerce Meeting

It was Thursday, Jan. 14 and Josh Wall was working at his desk in the Suffolk District Attorney’s office when Governor Deval Patrick called.

Having known Patrick for nearly 20 years, this wasn’t too unusual for Wall, after all, his wife, Betsy, was one of Governor Patrick’s first hires. She works to promote travel and tourism to Massachusetts.

“He said, ‘The Commonwealth needs you,’” said Wall, recalling Patrick’s words to him on the phone, before he asked him to accept the position as Director of the Massachusetts Parole Board.

“I asked the Governor if I could call him back in about a week after I thought about it. He said, ‘No, we’re having a press conference and your name’s on the press release, you have an hour,’” said Wall, as he stood in front of 30 Winchester business owners at the

Wall, who was invited to speak at the Annual Meeting, made the decision to accept the position.

All . Cinelli was a known criminal serving three life sentences.

after an attempted armed robbery on Dec. 26.

“I’ve worked in law enforcement all my professional life,” Wall said. “It’s a fraternity and when an officer gets hurt, it’s a big deal, even if you don’t know him. I didn’t know Officer Maguire, but I felt that affectionately.”

Wall has worked in the Suffolk DA’s office since 1993 and he told those in attendance about his passion for being a trial lawyer. But he said that his goal wasn’t to just get convictions.

“Being a criminal trial lawyer is the best job,” Wall said. “There’s so much community work and prevention, I was very happy where I was. My motivation wasn’t to put people in jail. I work with the urban population that needs help and I try to help them. I know more people in Roxbury than Beacon Hill.”

According to Wall, he didn’t know much about parole when he accepted the position. But he said that studies have shown that if someone gets out of prison without community supervision they’re more likely to commit another crime.

Wall’s first task was to rebuild the board – all five members that voted to release Cinelli resigned 15 minutes before he accepted the position.

“I’m excited about the job,” Wall said. “If we can learn to help someone succeed then they’re more likely to be successful members of society.”

Wall said that, for the first time, there is a forensic psychologist on the parole board that he said should help in the decision-making progress. And there will be other changes to how prisoners are granted parole.

“You have to look how they do on the outside,” Wall said. “If you looked at the last 10 years, Cinelli was fine, but if you looked further back, you could tell he was violent and probably a sociopath.”

Wall told the Chamber members, that, in speaking with his wife 30 minutes before accepting the position, he knew he had to take the job.

“I knew I could live with the level of responsibility that came with the job and the chance that bad things could happen,” Wall said. “But I couldn’t live with saying no and someone else making a bad decision.

“And when I called to tell the Governor I was accepting the position, I asked him why he had already put my name on the release and he said, ‘I’ve known you and Betsy for 20 years and I knew if the Commonwealth needed you, you were going to say yes.’”