I write in response to the recent article that ran under the headline, “Gants calls off DeLeo leak inquiry.” This article carried the sub-headline, “Law enforcement officials tell SJC they didn’t do it.”

Is this what a judicial order from the Supreme Judicial Court is worth?

The context here is that House Speaker Robert DeLeo and others were deposed and their depositions were ordered sealed by the court but provided to the US Attorney’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, the State Ethics Commission, and the Independent Counsel appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court. These depositions were taken in connection with an investigation of hiring practices at the Massachusetts Probation Department.

Speaker DeLeo wrote to Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants asking him to investigate the leak, which was in violation of the court’s order. DeLeo said in his letter to Gants that it was “disturbing that transcripts of testimony that are unavailable to me and subject to an order of impoundment by the court are in the possession of the Boston Globe.”

Gants asked the “suspects” if they did it. They said no, so Gants said, “We deem the matter closed.”

Hence my question: Is this what judicial orders are worth?

This situation would be akin to a district attorney saying in the investigation of a bank robbery or murder that we asked the suspects if they did it, they said no, so we deemed the matter closed.

A serious investigation would have included placing the Boston Globe under oath and asking them who did it. If that inquiry was undertaken with the same zeal as the exhaustive reporting that takes place every time a public official can be smeared in a newspaper with illegally leaked and incomplete material, then we might see less of it.

Michael O’Keefe is the district attorney for the Cape and Islands.

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