In 1997, then chief of the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit, Martha Coakley catapulted her career during the Louise Woodward trial.
Woodward, a 19-year-old British nanny, was accused of shaking 8-month-old Matthew Eappen of Newton to death. Coakley and lead prosecutor Gerard T. Leone Jr. persuaded the jury to convict Woodward of second-degree murder. But the judge reduced the charge to manslaughter and freed her.