DA's office now boasts Prosecutor of the Year

By Julie Manganis
Staff writer

June 23, 2008 11:13 am

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SALEM — She may not be as familiar a face in local courtrooms, but Mary-Alice Doyle's presence is felt there every day.

As a deputy first assistant district attorney and chief of district court operations, Doyle's role involves supervising dozens of young prosecutors scattered among the county's nine district courts. She fields emergency calls and guides them through the process of bringing a case to trial.

For her work, Doyle was recently honored with the William C. O'Malley Prosecutor of the Year award by the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association.

District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett called Doyle "indispensable" to the office.

"Mary-Alice is well-respected and admired by her peers, and she makes invaluable contributions to our office every day," Blodgett said in a statement announcing the award.

Doyle, the daughter of longtime Salem District Court Judge David Doyle (and sister of current Newburyport District Court Judge Peter Doyle), has had a long career with the district attorney's office, both under Blodgett and his predecessor, Kevin Burke, who hired her in 1987 as a juvenile justice unit coordinator. She helped create the juvenile diversion program at Lynn District Court and eventually became assistant director of the program.

Six years later, she graduated from Suffolk Law School and began working as an assistant district attorney in Lawrence District Court in 1993, quickly rising to the supervising prosecutor job there. She moved up to Superior Court in 1995 and eventually became chief of the DA's domestic violence unit and deputy director of training.

When Blodgett took office five years ago, he named her one of his deputy first assistant district attorneys and chief of district court operations. In her role she trains prosecutors, police officers and others on all sorts of legal issues.