Appeal Of Holyoke Soldiers Home Charges Goes To MA Supreme Court

BOSTON, MA — Arguments will start Wednesday in the state's highest court over whether two former Holyoke Soldiers Home leaders should face criminal charges over a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the facility at the start of the pandemic.

Former soldiers home superintendent Bennett Walsh and former medical director Dr. David Clinton were indicted in September 2020 by a grand jury on multiple charges of mistreating or abusing elderly and disabled people. But in November 2021, Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough dropped the charges citing a lack of evidence.

State Attorney General Maura Healey has alleged that Clinton and Walsh made the decision to combine dementia units at the hospital, mixing dozens of patients who had tested positive for coronavirus with ones who had not. Seventy-six soldiers home residents died and 80 more were sickened.

Healey appealed McDonough's dismissal in December 2021. Arguments whether to revisit the original charges against Walsh and Clinton will be heard starting Wednesday morning at the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston.

On top of the criminal case, the state in May 2022 reached a $56 million settlement with the families of the soldiers home residents. Holyoke Soldiers Home employees who were sickened in the outbreak have also filed a class-action lawsuit against the state.

The Holyoke Soldiers Home outbreak was one of the deadliest single incidents at the start of the global pandemic. Since April 2020 — and with coronavirus still circulating widely in Massachusetts — more than 21,200 people have died due to the virus, according to state records.