For over three decades, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley made a career out of prosecuting individuals suspected of violating the law.
Last week, her own integrity was called into question when body-worn camera footage captured Doorley wielding her position in defiance of a Webster police officer who tried to stop her for speeding down Phillips Road.
“I’m the DA,” Doorley told the officer moments after she parked in her garage and called Webster Police Chief Dennis Kohlmeier, pleading with him to tell the officer to “leave me alone.”
“If you give me a traffic ticket, that’s fine,” she continued. “I’m the one who prosecutes it.”
Doorley issued an apology video Monday. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has called for an investigation by a prosecutorial misconduct commission. Other community members want Doorley’s resignation.
Who is Sandra Doorley?
The incident has come after a long career in Monroe County.
Doorley, 60, started in the district attorney’s office in 1992, serving nearly 20 years in various high-ranking positions before she was elected to the top role in 2011. She holds the honor of Monroe County’s first female district attorney.
While she first ran on a Democratic platform, Doorley switched to the Republican Party in 2015. She was re-elected by voters three times, including last November when she ran unopposed.
Doorley served as president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York in 2020. She lives in Webster with her husband and a Goldendoodle named Finn. She has two daughters.
Sandra Doorley: Career highlights and criticisms
Doorley leads a staff of about 95 attorneys across the county, but her administrative duties haven’t kept her from the courtroom. In an interview with Spectrum News last month, she described preparing for trials as her “happy place.”
Across her career, Doorley built a reputation for prosecuting cold cases using DNA evidence. The most recent example is the conviction of Timothy Williams in the 1984 rape and murder of 14-year-old Wendy Jerome last month. The case went unsolved for nearly 40 years. The prosecution was the first of its kind in New York: Williams was arrested using “familial DNA,” which police used to narrow a list of suspects.
Doorley was also lead prosecutor in the high-profile murders of two Rochester police officers: Daryl Pierson in 2014 and Anthony Mazurkiewicz in 2022.
Doorley served as homicide bureau chief in the three years running up to her role as district attorney. In 2019, her office prosecuted 20,000 cases, ranking it among the top district attorney’s offices in New York based on caseload.
Others oppose her more traditional law-and-order approach.
In 2019, Doorley’s challenger for the district attorney seat, Shani Curry Mitchell, ran on a platform of criminal justice reform ― looking past incarceration as the primary response to crime. Mitchell argued that policies within Doorley’s office, such as low-level marijuana possession charges, led to the arrest of more African Americans and exacerbated racial inequities in the jail population.
In 2020, following the death of Daniel Prude, protesters called for Doorley’s resignation, saying she fails to prosecute police misconduct in Monroe County.
Doorley would disagree; the year prior her office prosecuted former RPD Officer Michael Sippel of a misdemeanor assault when questioning a man on a city sidewalk. She also personally prosecuted former Greece Police Chief Merritt Rahn, who was convicted of trying to cover up the crimes of some of his police officers.
Doorley also faced criticism from social justice advocates over her stance on bail reform, which she said would lead to a cycle of “catch and release” for area criminals. And for years, the district attorney has spoken against the Elder Parole Act, a bill that would extend parole eligibility to individuals 55 or over who have served at least 15 years of their sentence ― calling it “anti-victim.”
Over the weekend, the body-worn camera video of Doorley’s traffic stop emboldened her critics, who called it evidence of a two-tiered system of justice, where race, class, and status determine how you are treated by the law.
— This article includes reporting by Gary Craig and Marcia Greenwood.
— Kayla Canne reports on community justice and safety efforts for the Democrat and Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @kaylacanne and @bykaylacanne on Instagram. Get in touch at kcanne@gannett.com.
