Earlier this year, Rachael Rollins took office as Suffolk County DA. Many on the left praised her as a progressive reformer, while many on the right portrayed her as a rookie who is soft on crime. Morning Edition Host Joe Mathieu spoke with WGBH’s legal analyst Daniel Medwed to talk about Rollins’ progress just a few months into her tenure. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Joe Mathieu: First of all, explain what exactly a county DA does. We mention that title so often. How [can she] influence criminal justice policy around here?

Daniel Medwed: That's a great question. A county district attorney essentially runs a law office of prosecutors who will charge people with state crimes in the county and litigate those matters in court. She can influence criminal justice policy in a number of ways. First, she can use her charging power to decline to prosecute certain cases even after there's been an arrest. Second, she can establish protocols for her line assistants — assistant prosecutors — to follow in terms of bail requests or plea bargain offers, things like that. And third, she can make sentencing recommendations after there's been a guilty verdict. The famous phrase, "with power comes responsibility," was not only made by a prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, but it was made in reference to the office of the American prosecutor.

Mathieu: So it was not Spiderman's dad?

Medwed: It was not Spiderman's dad.

Mathieu: Now, the police were very wary of Rollins before she took over. What was the basis for their objections?

Medwed: I think it stemmed from one of her signature campaign pledges, which was to try to clamp down on what she considered to be over-criminalization by targeting 15 low-level crimes committed by first-time offenders — crimes like trespass and shoplifting — and have a presumption not to prosecute them. This rankled the law enforcement establishment, to put it mildly. A group called the National Police Association filed a grievance with the Board of Bar Overseers before Rollins even took office, claiming that her law license should be in jeopardy — that she's too soft on crime and that's an ethical violation.

Mathieu: Has the police's stance against Rollins soften since she took office? Sometimes it's different when we actually put things into practice.

Medwed: I think so. I think it has softened. That's my perception, at least. The much-feared revolution has not materialized. She never categorically vowed to decline to prosecute all of these cases, she just said, I'll presume not to prosecute these low-level cases unless there's a countervailing consideration, like a public safety risk, and then I'll march forward. And the data since she took office suggests that she is marching forward in a relatively large percentage of them.

Mathieu: She got some national coverage based on these comments. They got a lot of people talking, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised by that. I wonder, though, if the fact that Rollins is still charging some of these cases is causing concern among her more eager followers who elected her for reform?

Medwed: That's right. She was elected as a reformer, so some people on the left think she's not going far enough quickly enough. For instance, there's a grassroots organization called Court Watch MA, which has vowed to monitor Rollins over the first 100 days of her tenure to make sure that she abides by her campaign promises. They've installed court watchers, observers, in three of the eight municipal courts in Suffolk County to monitor her activities. According to their data, during her first three weeks in office, they observed 259 cases that exclusively involved charges on this declined-to-prosecute list: 118 of them advanced [and] were not dropped — about 46 percent. More recent data is similar, figures in the 40, 42, 44 percent range of cases going forward.

So on the one hand, I applaud groups like Court Watch MA for monitoring prosecutors [and] for holding them accountable. I've spent much of my academic life urging people to make sure that prosecutors are accountable. But on the other hand, I think we should be patient here. Rollins is very savvy. She's sophisticated. She's an evolutionary, not a revolutionary. She knows the best way to win over the hearts and minds of the law enforcement establishment is not through dramatic change, but through incremental reforms that can get buy-in from people. I think we should stay tuned. I believe she'll realize her vision down the road.