Romney names 4 women to bench

Clarification: A story in yesterday's City & Region section about Governor Mitt Romney's nomination of four women for judgeships stated that 40 percent of former governor Paul Cellucci's judicial appointments from 1997 through 2000 were women. During his final months in office, in 2001, Cellucci made another 14 judicial appointments, two of them women. Including the 2001 numbers, 31 percent of Cellucci's judicial appointments were women.

Governor Mitt Romney, under pressure to name more women to the bench, yesterday nominated three current or former prosecutors and a top official from the Menino administration in what aides boasted is the largest number of female candidates ever brought forward at once.

Kathe M. Tuttman of Andover and Merita A. Hopkins of Boston were nominated as associate justices of the Superior Court; Tracy L. Lyons of Marblehead as associate justice of the Brighton division of the Boston Municipal Court; and Therese M. Wright of West Barnstable as associate justice of the Edgartown District Court.

Until yesterday, just 13 of Romney's 43 recommendations for the judiciary were women, sparking criticism from groups that said he should appoint more. Recently, Romney has pushed to appoint more female and minority judges, and last month he put the spotlight on the Judicial Nominating Commission, the state panel that screens potential judges, for failing to forward more candidates to his office.

''The governor felt he wasn't getting enough female and minority candidates," said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. ''The governor is interested in making sure that appointments to the bench, to the extent possible, reflect the diversity of the community at large."

If yesterday's recommendations are approved by the Governor's Council, 36 percent of his judicial appointments will have been women. That rate is less than the previous governor. Forty percent of Paul Cellucci's appointments to the bench from 1997 to 2000 were women.

Romney nominated six women to the bench in 2005. He has recommended six so far this year, including the four put forward yesterday.

''That's a step in the right direction," said Pamela Berman, the former president of the Women's Bar Association and a current partner at a Boston-based law firm. ''We've been actively trying to encourage women to apply. We hope he continues this trend."

Tuttman, who has worked as an Essex County prosecutor since 1989, prosecuted Patrick S. McMullen, the Salisbury man convicted last year of raping, beating, and holding hostage his wife and six children for six years. She also prosecuted Eugene McCollom, who pleaded guilty last year to beheading a prostitute and burying her body parts on a Nahant beach.

Lyons was a prosecutor for nearly 15 years, including chief of the sexual assault unit in the Suffolk district attorney's office. She prosecuted Terrance Copeland, the man who eventually pleaded guilty to numerous charges in the kidnap and rape of four teenage girls near the Ashmont MBTA station in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, Lyons opened her own office as a general practitioner in civil and criminal cases.

Wright, who now works in the appellate division of the Plymouth district attorney's office, has argued before the state Supreme Judicial Court in rape and drug cases.

Before she was chief of staff to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Hopkins was corporation counsel for the city and responsible for the direction of the city's Legal Department.

She also specialized in white-collar crime and drug prosecutions as a prosecutor in the state district and superior courts with the Middlesex district attorney's office.

Tuttman and Hopkins are registered Democrats. Lyons is a Republican. Wright is registered as unaffiliated with any political party.

An official from the Massachusetts Republican Party said yesterday that the affiliations of the nominees have no bearing on their abilities.

''They all have prosecutorial experience," said Matt Wylie, the party's executive director. ''We can count on them to be law-and-order judges. Patronage has no place in hiring and appointments."

Romney has argued that political views don't matter when it comes to enforcing the law. The legal community celebrated the governor's new rules for the Judicial Nominating Commission, including a ''blind" first phase of the selection process that removes names from applications to ensure that candidates are judged on merits alone.