TheAgitator.com
TheAgitator.com’s 2009 Prosecutor Awards
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009The next two Monday morning polls will be for our annual Worst Prosecutor of the Year Award and a Favorite Prosecutor of the Year Award.
Think over the last year, and make your nominations in the comments. To keep it interesting, prior “Worst” winners Mary Beth Buchanan and Forrest Allgood will be excluded from this year’s, er, “competition.” Dallas County, Texas DA Craig Watkins will also be excluded from the good guys contest. He was this site’s “Prosecutor of the Year” last year.
The awards can be given for a lifetime of work, not just cases brought or decided in 2009.
Can we give special awards for the Obama administrations defense of all sorts of rules that make possible prosecutorial misconduct? Not just prosecutorial immunity, but also keeping so much secret.
First thought off the top of my head in the “worst” category is Anita Alvarez, for abuses with asset forfeiture and her harassment of the Northwestern University journalism students.
Lynne Abraham deserves the award now that she is retiring. She has been Philadelphia’s DA since 1991. She earned the nicknames “Deadliest DA” and “Queen of Death” for the high rate at which her office sought the death penalty.
This push by her office for so much capital punishment increased costs for her office and the defenders into the stratosphere for cases where everyone knew the guy wouldn’t be executed anyway. Add to that the likelihood that a number were innocent of course and we can see how awful such a policy was. By spending so much resources on these cases, she left non-capital violent crime cases to whither and die
The Philadelphia Inquirer says “Among the nation’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia has the highest rates of homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault – plus one of the worst conviction rates.
A review of 31,000 cases filed from 2006 to 2008 found that only about 20 percent of the violent crimes ended in felony convictions. The violent-crime conviction rate in other big cities is about 50 percent.”
Finally, Abraham has all but refused to charge dirty cops. Years ago, the FBI actually sought help from the Philly Public Defender’s Association with bringing down corrupt Philly cops because they couldn’t get help from the DA’s office. She continually refuses to charge cops caught on video or observed by double digit witnesses stealing cash from people, or shooting folks while they were off duty and drunk. She uses the Grand Jury process to shield herself from the decision to not go after such vermin.
Surely her 18 years of malfeasance, ineptitude, corruption, and perversion of justice earns her a spot on the list.
I nominate Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, currently running for Ted Kennedy’s old seat.
A highlight reel:
* 2001: Coakley successfully lobbied Gov. Jane Swift to deny clemency to Gerald Amirault, whom many regarded as a victim of day care sex abuse hysteria (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020318/pollitt).
* 2007: Coakley defended the overreaction by Boston emergency response personnel to a bunch of LED boxes depicting cartoon characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: “It had a very sinister appearance, it had a battery behind it, and wires.” (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007-02-16-tech-fear_x.htm)
* 2009: Signed an amicus brief defending restrictions in the ability of higher courts to overturn lower court decisions (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/06/coakley_criticized_for_joining_death_penalty_brief/)
* 2009: Argued before the Supreme Court that forensic lab technicians should never be subject to defense cross-examination. She was widely considered to have completely botched the argument. (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/23/coakley_had_tough_time_in_case_before_supreme_court/)
I’m sure there are worse prosecutors than she, but she definitely deserves a nomination.
Best:
Bobby Sand, Windsor County Vermont State’s Attorney
Marijuana decriminalization advocate, has gone toe-to-toe with the governor over his decision to defer prosecution of marijuana cases even when the amounts are quite large, testifies at legislative hearings in support of decriminalization. Also an outspoken opponent of jacking up penalties for the crime of the day.
A couple news articles:
http://www.wptz.com/news/14535224/detail.html
http://www.rherald.com/news/2007-12-13/Front_Page/f04.html
http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2008/08/09/prosecutors_testify_against_longer_minimum_sentences/
I’ll nominate one for best, actually. Robert Morgenthau, New York County (that is, Manhattan) District Attorney 1974-2009. Did a decent job running it all things considered, and also got rid of the death penalty within Manhattan by declining to bring any death penalty cases. He’s retiring this year.
“Capital punishment merely allows proponents to convince themselves that they have done something to fight crime. It is a mirage that distracts society from more fruitful, less facile answers. The death penalty exacts a terrible price in dollars, lives and human decency.”
http://www.nyadp.org/main/pressae205
I’m going to be writing a column about Coakley soon.
I’ll second my hometown prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, for the “worst” category.
Me!
can this list exceed 100? Maybe it would be easier to list those on the plus side.
20000 quatloos on the Buchanan bitch!
Sadly, your RSS feed is now showing ads that move. The huge non-moving ads were only barely tolerable, but the moving ones are just egregious.
I can’t wait for Chrome extensions for Mac so I can get my ad blocking back!
My vote for the good guy goes to Portsmouth, VA Commonwealth’s Attorney Earl Mobley. Two decisions stand out – First, stepping up to blow the whistle on Jamal Skeeter in Ryan Frederick’s Trial
http://valawyersweekly.com/vlwblog/2009/02/02/mobley-praised-for-integrity/
And secondly for his choice NOT to pursue prosecution in the heart breaking case of Andrew Culpepper.
http://www.lifesaversconference.org/handouts2009/Fennell6.doc
The quote that impressed me most:
“The easy thing in a case like this is to dump it on a jury, but that is not the right thing to do,” Mobley says. A prosecutor’s responsibility, he says, is to achieve justice, not to settle some sort of score.
Could we get that on a bumper sticker?!?
@RB: I’m going to be writing a column about Coakley soon.
The thing about Coakley and the Amirault case that gets me: it is clear the investigative methods used in that case were seriously flawed, but at the same time there appears to be a substantial possiblity that Gerald Amirault is guilty — there are a number of children (now grown) who continue to insist that he is. I wish Coakley would speak candidly about that case to explain what she thinks went wrong and what went right. In any event, I will be interested to see your column.
alkai, do they still insist they were raped by robots, or that they were penetrated by 12″ knives anally without a single solitary shred of physical evidence and only after their repeated denials were ignored at the time.
There is simply not a single piece of evidence beyond the coerced testimony of children who were made to be convinced that any abuse happened.
Time for a neologism.
Trying people for political or vindictive purposes:
Prosectution
Paul Ebert FTL! He’s right in Radley’s backyard and was the guest prosecutor of Ryan Frederick. Perhaps Ham Sandwich can take him out in the next election.
Patrick Frey…does being a lifetime douchebag count as a lifetime of work?
Incidentally, have you seen his latest dust-up with Jeff Goldstein? Should bring back some fond memories for you Radley.
Are you back to live podium (per the latest post)?
#6, Peter:
Morgantheau pulls the same b.s. as most other prosecuters when it comes to intentionally going soft on obviously guilty cops to the point where they either don’t even get indicted, or he intentionally throws the case to get a not guilty verdict.
Don’t know how he behaves compared to his peers, though.
#18 Hamburglar007:
I saw that too. Let’s hope not. That would be like a reverse Christmas present from Radley to all of his readers.
Please Radley, don’t do it!!!
yizmo: i think “prostecution” rolls a little better…
Radley, I hate to even start, but livepodium is simply not working at all now. Just sits there with the “connecting” screen up…
Evil Andy Thomas! DO NOT forget that creep.
Helps Arpaio arrest journalists in the middle of the night.
Indicts county supervisors who hold Arpaio accountable for funds management.
Teaches Arpaio how to go after working illegals to appear tough while ignoring felony warrants.
Sees no police abuse on a tape that the police department said showed abuse.
And more.
Another reason to elect Evil Andy Thomas as worst prosecutor — he went after a kid whose computer was filled with viruses, spyware, and a backdoor trojan that enabled someone else to use the PC to host child porn. Of course neither the cops nor Andy bothered to even look for hacking or backdoor entries, according to court testimony. The kid escaped the porn charge in exchange for a plea on other charges.
While Cook County, IL’s Anita Alvarez has garnered more public attention in the last year, she’s Craig Watkins legal doppelganger compared to Lake County, IL criminal division chief, Mike Mermel. In May 2009, Mermel secured the conviction of Juan Rivera for a rape and murder DNA evidence proved he did not commit. If that weren’t enough, he has three more cases pending against people even though DNA evidence suggests they are innocent. This guy is awful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ipCE8w270
This is just kind of weird.
I presume Tanya Treadway will be one of the nominees. Using the judicial system to harass people trying to counter her attempts to prejudice the jury pool against the defendants surely qualifies her.
I’m not changing my vote, I still like Earl Mobley, but I gotta say that Yavapai, AZ County Attorney Sheila Polk has some brass cojones…
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2009/12/21/20091221polk22-ON.html
It’s one thing for a blogger or a reporter to say those things; quite another for a county prosecutor.
Please consider Tanya Treadway. The scourge of Kansas is after one of the few doctors , who posess the bravery and compassion necessary to treat, effectively, chronic pain patients with the proper opioid medications they so often need. The way in which Ms.Treadway has relentlessly gone after the chronic pain patients who support the defense, has made a mockery of this trial , civil liberties, and due process.