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USA Today exposes a "pattern of serious, glaring misconduct" among federal prosecutors

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader alerted me to this potent and disturbing new piece in USA Today headlined "Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales." Here are a few excerpts: Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely score convictions. But a USA TODAY investigation found that prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions. Judges have warned for decades that misconduct by prosecutors threatens the Constitution's promise of a fair trial. Congress in 1997 enacted a law aimed at ending such abuses. Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors ? the nation's most elite and powerful law enforcement officials ? themselves violated laws or ethics rules...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).