A who’s who in BC Law public servants recently came together to celebrate the renaming of the Norfolk County Superior Courthouse in Dedham, MA, in honor of Hon. William D. Delahunt ’67. Attending were former Lieutenant Governor and Massachusetts Attorney General Frank Bellotti ’52, former chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court Hon. Suzanne Del Vecchio ’67, US Senator Ed Markey ’72, and former Senator and US Secretary of State and current Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry ’76, all of whom spoke. Also in attendance, US representative Stephen Lynch ’91 and Plymouth County clerk of court and former Massachusetts state legislator Robert Creedon ’67.
Delahunt was the longest tenured Norfolk County District Attorney, serving from 1975 to 1997. He then was elected as a US congressional representative from 1997 to 2011. A uniting force, Delahunt, a Democrat, was recognized by his Republican colleagues in Congress as one of the top ten most bipartisan Democratic legislators in the House.
Delahunt’s groundbreaking legacy as district attorney was his creation of the country’s first prosecutorial unit on domestic violence and sexual assault cases. The pioneering program established to combat violence against women became a national model.