One of Radley Balko’s guest bloggers — I’m not sure which one because they didn’t attach a name to the post — writes about the various excuses the courts have come up with for granting absolute immunity to prosecutors who withhold or even falsify evidence that results in an innocent person being convicted.
The high court has justified its rulings by claiming that although individuals that have been wronged cannot receive redress from the people who wronged them, those alleged miscreants still can be punished by the system, including the various state bars and also can face criminal charges. While all of that sounds good, the reality bumps into the simple fact that government employees tend to protect their own.
After the Tonya Craft acquittal, I spoke to an official of the Georgia State Bar about the conduct of prosecutors Len Gregor and Christopher Arnt. In a letter to the bar, I outlined specifically how these two men repeatedly violated the Standards of Conduct for prosecutors laid out in the bar’s regulations. The official, however, told me that she really didn’t care how they acted because, in her view, “They were just doing their jobs.”
After I asked her if suborning perjury, lying to jurors and the public, and hiding exculpatory evidence fell into the “doing their jobs” category, she hung up. Nor was the Georgia State Bar the only government agency that has been unresponsive. The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were given mountains of evidence about prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that crossed the line into criminal behavior, yet they, along with the attorney general of Georgia, ignored everything.
This hardly is unusual. In fact, it is the norm. Lawsuits are the only means of redress that can be initiated by private individuals that are not employed by the justice system, so by blocking this one avenue of justice the SCOTUS essentially has blocked justice itself. Thus, in order for any kind of justice to prevail against prosecutorial and judicial wrongdoing, the very peers and friends of those who violate the law and standards of conduct are then expected to initiate proceedings against their peers and friends. That just does not happen.
Perhaps we will soon hear Justice Scalia talk about a “new professionalism” among prosecutors, an idea for which we will have as little evidence as his similar claim about police officers.
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Chiroptera
August 14, 2012 at 10:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Remember: when it comes to health care, government can’t do anything right, and government employees are too stupid and selfish to be trusted to do their jobs correctly.
But when it comes to the police, prosecutors, and five-star bureaucrats in the Pentagon, then suddenly it is wrong to disparage the honorable work that these selfless public servants perform for us.
schmeer
August 14, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What do they imagine will be the result of having a justice system that does not provide justice? According to Steven Pinker’s well sourced book, The better angels of our nature, we should see an increase in crime as the perception begins to spread among the population that the justice system doesn’t work.
But we’re supposed to believe that these are the people who really favor law and order? I’m skeptical that the “law and order” crowd like anything more than the tv show style justice; everything must be simple and resolved in under an hour in a manner that everyone can understand.
Reginald Selkirk
August 14, 2012 at 11:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pah. The argument is that corporations hire people, so taxing the corporation and taxing the employees is a double whammy. Well, as I once heard, “corporations are people, my friend.” All the money I make as an actual person eventually goes to other people, because I use it to pay for things like food, shelter, transportation, etc.; but that is not an excuse for why my income tax should be eliminated. The money goes round and round. And if corporations are going to have rights like free speech, they can damn well pay for the privilege.
Reginald Selkirk
August 14, 2012 at 11:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bleep, wrong thread.
AsqJames
August 14, 2012 at 2:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In the UK anyone can bring a “Private Prosecution” if the police/CPS has failed to act…although according to this Wikipedia article the CPS can screw a victim of crime a second time by taking over a private prosecution and subsequently dropping it.
The same article says private prosecutions were common in the US throughout the nineteenth century and that they are still specifically allowed for in Virginia common law. This seems to imply that there’s no such provision elsewhere in the US but it’s not spelled out.
To be clear, I’m not talking about tort law and civil suits for damages, I’m talking about criminal law with a criminal trial funded and organised by non-government parties and in the article Ed quotes above criminal actions are alleged to have taken place.
1. Does anyone know if this is still possible in the US (outside Virginia)?
2. Does anyone think it’s a good idea (perhaps as as a backup to the current system in cases like this)?
Hayden
August 14, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The police generally have an internal affairs bureau. Is there usually a similar group in the attorney general’s office?