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Shocker of the Day: DOJ rarely disciplines its prosecutors

Let me refer readers to a good overview of deficiencies in federal oversight of prosecutorial misconduct by the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility from the blog EmptyWheel, following up on analyses by Mike at Crime and Federalism and recent journalistic critiques. EmptyWheel is a partisan Democratic blog setting the stage for a series on torture politics, which is beyond Grits' purview. But their preliminary discussion of lax federal infrastructure overseeing DOJ prosecutors, relying mostly on OPR annual reports and recent testimony from DOJ's Inspector General, interested me much more.To bottom line the concern: Very few federal prosecutors are disciplined by DOJ, even when judges found they engaged in serious misconduct. Further, DOJ's independent Office of Inspector General has no authority to investigate misconduct by Justice Department attorneys, whose misconduct is instead investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility,which is not statutorily independent and reports directly to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 24, 2010 (boomark / email).