TheAgitator.com
No Accountability
Monday, October 26th, 2009My crime column this week asks why misbehaving prosecutors are so rarely punished. If you read this site with any regularity, you’ll know that they’re often rewarded.
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This is why I don’t buy the argument about how “the legal system is adversarial by design; the competition ensures that the right side wins.” It conjures up sportsmanlike images, a professional basketball game. If so, in reality:
1. There are still 10 players on the court; 8 from the home team, 2 from the visitors
2. The home team’s center is also the referee
3. The visitors must score in a regulation basketball hoop, set at 15 feet rather than 10. The home team scores in any of 3 hockey nets set at ground level around the court.
4. During each game, the home team will receive one dozen “Get Out Of Penalty Free” cards, plus one additional card per minute of play. Upon being called for any foul, they may use one card and resume play without penalty. They also have the option to use two, and transfer the penalty to the visitors.
5. The penalty for all visitor fouls (or those transferred to them) will consist of 3 free throws by the home team, and automatic home team possession.
6. The penalty for all non-transferred home team fouls will be a 5-yard penalty, and home team possession (whether or not they were on offense or defense at the time of the foul).
7. Gameplay ends at the discretion of the home team – at any point after the 2-minute mark, they may elect to end the game. There is no maximum game duration.
Having prosecutors being held accountable might set a bad* precedent for congressmen, state legislators, governors, presidents, etc.
*”Bad” from from their point of view, that is.
I think the answer lies in the State Bar Associations.
I find it hard to believe that politicians would pass any form of law that would make the prosecutor’s job that much “harder”. They all rely on wins and to be subject to ethics, well, that’s just hindering their ability to put people in jail.
If they are disbarred, however, then some of these idiots might actually think twice before doing something unethical. I believe a disbarred person can no longer serve as a prosecutor, correct?
One of the traditional purposes of capital punishment was to purge the land of the curse associated with the crime. It was a form of human sacrifice, ideally of the guilty, but that wasn’t the most important thing.
The criminal justice system still operates on that principle, we just don’t admit it.
Great article. I’ve always been under the impression (correct or not) that the biggest problem in our judicial system lies at the feet of the prosecution. Just making them legally accountable for their actions would clean up at least a decent portion of these kinds of issues.
Related:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/26/alabama.judge.inmate.sex/index.html
I offer no further commentary, just read it.
Regarding prosecutors, we have the answers, we just don’t have the balls to implement the fix. The simplest fix is that any prosecutor who sends an innocent person to prison knowingly, or neglects to supply the defense with exculpatory evidence, gets one of two punishments:
1. If the victim has been to prison, the corrupt prosecutor is automatically sentenced to the time served by the victim *in all the same jail cells that the victim was incarcerated in for the same lengths of time*. No posh country-club minimum security frat houses. No appeals, no time off for good behavior, etc.
2. If the victim has not been sent to prison yet, the corrupt prosecutor is sentenced to whatever sentence he was trying to get for the victim, in the same jail the victim would have went to. Again, no appeals.
The problems would end tomorrow.
Favorite comment from Reason:
Really, you guys have Friday Funnies and Friday Fun Links, why not just rename these posts “Balko’s Monday Morning Nut Punch”
Prosecutors are accountable. The problem is that they people they’re accountable to (the voters) don’t give a damn.
Them versus us ????????
Right because having the police policing themselves worked so well. Next up, pony rides.
More prosecutors would be held accountable if Lou Dobbs and Keith Olberman would actually report on shit that matters rather than partisan horse shit. The general public might actually become more aware of the problem.
The people who vote for these guys should be charged with conspiracy.
II think the problem is that too many people will excuse evil if good intentions can be claimed for it. They are unwilling to condemn the self-righteous. And they are unwilling to believe that they themselves could commit an evil act. They see those before the courts as almost belonging to a different species for which they have no empathy,
They want to see the police and prosecutors as their heroes protecting them. They find the alternative too disturbing.
They see good and evil as opposites rather than than as things that can coexist in the same act because they refer to different things. The see evil as some sort of contamination, some malign drive rather than as a failure of moral consideration. So they do not see that good can be the engine of evil. They do not see that someone who is obsessed with trying to do good who does not consider the cost to others is evil and probably more evil than someone with a similar moral failure who is acting from personal motives. That good without wisdom and a sense of proportion can lead to evil
They do not see that punishing evil is not even good, just necessary.
They can understand that a person can do evil despite being good in most respects. They do not understand that someone can be evil because they are good.
Authoritarians. The lot of them.* Fie on their houses. A curse on their progeny. More old-timey defamations ad infinitum.
Here’s a thought: can we identify when a prosecutor who does something right and decent and correct and human? Can we reward that in a tangible way that matters (besides re-electing them)?
Maybe a carrot and not always the stick? Perhaps I’m hopelessly naive and pollyannish, but, Dear Jebus, isn’t there a way out of this fucking mess?
First nominee is Craig Watkins who Mr. Balko has written of in the past. Any others?
I’m just looking for a few folks who don’t want to be the next Joe Arpaio; they don’t have to be saints.
* Most of them, anyway.
You people need to wake up. There are no false convictions. There are only loopholes that allow the guilty to get off. One such loophole is the appeals process. A second one is this goofy belief in the infallibility of DNA. Most of these cases were so strong, they didn’t even need DNA evidence to get a conviction. They were based on foolproof facts like eye-witness testimony, actual confessions by the accused, and modern scientific crime scene analysis (just like on CSI).
Then, along comes some highfalutin lawyer whose mission in life is to put criminals back out on the streets to terrorize innocent people (especially children). He selfishly files an appeal based on some cock-and-bull story using trendy DNA evidence as if it’s legitimate science instead of the sorcery everyone with a brain knows it to be.
You people won’t be happy until you’ve completely undermined every positive time-tested measure of guilt there is: trial by ordeal, phrenology, bite marks, confessions (confessions, for Christ’s sake!), etc. The list is endless.
Let me let you bleeding heart pansies in on a secret that prosecutors know and that you need to learn. No one is innocent. There are just varying degrees of guilt.
Support the Innocence Project if you want to.
(I feel like a public radio shill. Sorry!)
Watching TV one day, a criminal defense atty. talked about why complaints are rarely filed against prosecutors. He thinks defense attys. keep quiet in order to protect other clients in other cases.
If a defense attorney files a complaint against a prosecutor, he risks reprisals from other prosecutors in that jurisdiction or in surrounding jurisdictions where the defense attorney practices. After filing a complaint, the pending cases of current clients or future clients might be adversly affected. Defendants that might normally get probation for a guilty plea will get a year in prison instead. Another client that might get 1-2 year prison sentence might get 3-5 years instead. IOW, other prosecutors might punish him by punishing his clients.
So, to protect those clients and those future cases from retribution, they keep their mouths shut. They will file a complaint when the conduct is egregious, but not for what are viewed as minor missteps by prosecutors.
It made sense to me.
Remember this article the next time you hear the words, “Tort Reform”. Under most circumstances, one cannot sue the prosecutor or judge. It is getting to be that way with the cops. There are instances where police policies have changed b/c of lawsuits. In Easton, Pa., the swat team disbanded. Now those suits are being denied with increasing frequency. When you cannot sue, things stay the same or worsen.
If you think negligent industry and negligent doctors will clean up on their own good conscience, I have a bridge for sale…
Off topic:
Ex-Huntsville officer sentenced to 7 years in prison for having gun with missing serial number.
Circuit Judge Karen Hall gave the sentence [...], saying law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard.
I heard the above story reported on the local public radios station I don’t know anymore of the details about the other charges for which he was acquitted. I was surprised by the severity of the sentence, though.
Dave
pick your metaphor – stopped clock / blind squirrel
:)
LOL! Yeah, every law enforcement agency in the state is probably looking at this cop’s conviction and sentence thinking “the system” broke down somewhere. I mean, how could a cop (a cop!) get convicted?
Dave
Look at the charges – tampering w/ evidence & distribution. These require the jury to believe the officer did something wrong.
On the gun charge…It’s hard to acquit when the gun is in your possession.
I’m surprised he was even charged.
Did he bugger the Chief or something?
He’s an officer. I think this is one trial that actually ended up right. Someone in a position as an officer should be held to the highest standards. Too bad most cities don’t even see these cases, or if they do, the thug club laughs together about it.
Slightly off topic, but here’s an emerging story about justice in the “military asset of San Bernardino County.” Here, a defendant cannot receive true representation by his public defender, or that public defender will be put on leave, fired or otherwise punished by his boss, the district attorney (prosecutor).
http://bbvm.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/iepolitics-turmoil-in-sb-county-public-defender-operation/