Sunday, February 14, 2010

This prosecutor knows who's to blame for prosecutorial misconduct

I know I pick on prosecutors a lot, but sometimes they make it so darn easy.  Like when they act like petulant children after getting called out for misconduct.  The Santa Clara County (CA) District Attorney has announced her office would boycott a particular judge after she overturned a defendant's convictions.  Turns out there was some pretty exculpatory evidence that the prosecution had all along but didn't share with the defense.  Evidently, the Santa Clara County DA's office thinks it's an outrage that a judge would dare hold them accountable for breaking the rules to get a conviction.

Not turning over exculpatory evidence is a major no-no.  Any prosecutor knows that.  So any prosecutor who violates that rule has no one to blame but herself.  The prosecutor certainly has no right to blame the judge who calls her on the misconduct.  But Dolores Carr, Santa Clara County DA, thinks she can not only blame a judge for having the nerve to hold her office accountable for misconduct, but Ms. Carr seems to think she can go further and retaliate against the judge.  I trust this judge won't be so easily bullied into submission.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am amazed at the amount of prosecutorial misconduct these days. Have you seen the amount of misconduct connected with the Backdating options cases? I mean look at this one in particular:http://www.usgovernmentlied.com/us-government-lied/gregory-reyes-backdating-conviction-is-reversed.html

S said...

Interesting link. In that case, one has to think that just some level of personal animosity towards the particular defendant might have been involved. In the Santa Clara case, the misconduct went to the very heart of whether there was even a crime committed. So in both cases, it appears the prosecutors were more interested in nailing the particular defendants than in uncovering whether a crime was even committed. Not a good use of taxpayer resources!

 
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