While an Assistant District Attorney with civil service protection might not have to worry about how their conviction rate affects there career an elected DA who has to run for election every four years might. Especially when since DAs always seem to be emphasizing how “tough on crime” they are.
J. Edgar Hoover allowed two innocent men to be convicted of a Mob murder that was actually committed by an informant. He had evidence that his informant (who was the guy who named the two “killers”) was in fact the real killer, but he withheld the evidence and allowed the two men to be sentenced to death. Fortunately, their sentences were commuted when the Supreme Court halted capital punishment, but it’s still a disgusting miscarriage of justice.
I remember some talk of taking Hoover’s name off the FBI Building, but it seems like nothing ever came of it.
There was a case a few years ago. A man’s niece claimed he raped her. He went to jail.
She later claimed it was the neighbor. In the intervening time, DNA had become viable for evidence.
They tagged a DNA profile of the neighbor- and the neighbor was cleared. Incidentally, the man in jail was cleared by the same test.
The prosecutor argued that since his appeal was based on the viability of another candidate, and not on his own exculpation by DNA, the appeal must be denied.
Man spent something like two more years in prison? Illinois, I think.
The DA maintained that it undermined eye witness testimony, which was considered something -the lawyers will know- like first degree evidence. Despite her recanting, which he dismissed as family pressure.
They didn’t release him until after the man who did it was behind bars- and there was public outcry.
[hijack]
In fact, Gerry Conlon’s own book about the experience was the basis for the film (starring Daniel Day Lewis). Both the book and movie are well worth seeking out.
I am surprised (and delighted) to learn that there is another prosecutor on the Boards, although my presence is nowhere near as substantial as Max’s. Any more besides Max and me?
I guess the question posed is ultimately one of epistemology - how does the prosecutor know the accused is innocent? This is the reverse of the common dinner party question - what if a defence lawyer knows the client is guilty? There are, of course, different consequences, but the question of what amounts to “knowledge” is the difficulty. Merely having information that conflicts with the prosecution case does not satisfy that.
For present purposes, “knowledge” is probably the equivalent of belief, but I suspect that most prosecutors who find themselves tempted to break the rules (as in the examples given above) have undertaken sufficient cognitive distortions so that they have convinced themselves of their own righteousness. The process is sometimes called “good-cause corruption” to distinguish cases of misguided distortion of the process from cases of graft.
As to the popular (but wrong) belief that prosecutor’s keep strike rates of their wins and losses, I can only speak from my own experience (in a non-American jurisdiction) but trial lawyers who brag about conviction (or acquittal) rates are treated as n00bs or bottom feeders in the profession generally. Everyone knows you can tweak your strike rate by dropping even faintly weak cases (if a prosecutor), or having all your defence clients plead guilty except for the dead set winners. “Strike rates”, in other words, tend to be distorted by the very fact of trying to keep them.
In my jurisdiction, the rules about continuing with a prosecution require that a case should pass a two-fold test. The first test is whether there are “reasonable prospects of a conviction”. This is a more difficult test than whether there is merely a prima facie case. The second test is whether it is in the public interest to pursue the matter. This covers a wide variety of situations and factors in such things as the seriousness of the offence, the availability of alternatives to prosecution, the age and ill-health of the accused or the complainant and so on.
The rule that prosecutors are “ministers of justice” who do not strive for convictions as trophies is probably universal.
This article covers the story of Steven Crawford, et. al.
Then there’s the story of Ray Krone.
No doubt there are more-these two stuck in my head, having read about them in the local papers.
In my experience, that isn’t the case. In my office, there’s just myself and the elected DA (well, County Attorney with Felony Responsibilities, technically), so I get pretty close to all the election goings-on when that time rolls around. I see a whole lot more “I push for tough sentences” or “In the past two years I sent X major drug dealers to the state pen for 25 years or longer” than “I have a 98% conviction rate,” and that makes sense, because, as I said earlier, you simply can’t win every case. As a prosecutor, your case is only as good as what you’re given, and as the saying goes, you can’t polish a turd.
Exactly. If a defense lawyer says they’ve never lost a case, they’re not trying the hard ones.
You beat me to it. The FBI may not count as a prosecutor, but the Teddy Deegan murder is a good example of them knowingly concealing evidence and encouraging perjury so that two innocent (well, not guilty of murder, at least) men would go to prison instead of their informant.
Patricia Stallings. She did not poison her child, the evidence pointed to the fact that she did not poison her child, but she was imprisoned anyway. When the evidence proved that her second child had a genetic disorder that made it look like he had been poisoned, the prosecuter said that did not prove she did not poison her first child.
This is why in Canada, the rule of Crown disclosure doesn’t make a distinction between inculpatory and exculpatory evidence. The Crown is required to disclose everything to the defence that is relevant, and ‘relevant’ is defined very broadly. It’s not the role of the Crown to assess whether evidence will help the defence or not. That’s the job of the defence, so they get to see everything. if the Crown fails to meet this duty, there may be a mistrial or a successful defence appeal. The Crown involved may also face professional sanctions by the Law Society, if the failure to disclose can be shown to be more than mere negligence.
And this is why in Canada, prosecutors are never elected. They are career civil servants, independent of electoral pressures. Like other civil servants, they hold office regardless of who’s in power or a change in government.
This is the standard we use in Canada as well.
This happened to Michael Shields, an 18 year old man, despite another man confessing to the crime, he was sentanced to 15 years in a Bulgarian jail, although I believe he has now been transferred to a UK jail.