Prosecutorial Misconduct Leading To Wrongful Convictions
Key Takeaways:
- In the rush to convict and punish criminals, a prosecutor can focus too closely on a certain suspect.
- Even with evidence that points to a different perpetrator, the nature of their profession often forces prosecutors to take the easiest route to a conviction.
- Prosecutors tend to operate in the public eye and are subject to intense scrutiny by the media and constituents.
Prosecutors, the people who represent the state during criminal trials, are under pressure to obtain convictions. This is especially so when high-profile or violent crimes have occurred.
The pressures of an elected office, overwhelming caseloads, and an honest desire to seek justice sometimes force prosecutors to act unethically when prosecuting crimes. As a result of prosecutorial misconduct, people have been wrongly convicted of crimes in some cases.
The best way to counterbalance a prosecutor’s eagerness is with a criminal defense attorney. A criminal defense lawyer’s job is to defend you and hold prosecutors accountable for the choices they make, the things they do, and the things they say.
Focusing on the Wrong Suspect
In the rush to convict and punish criminals, a prosecutor can focus too closely on a particular suspect. Even with evidence that points to a different perpetrator, the nature of their profession often forces prosecutors to take the easiest route to a conviction.
Prosecutors tend to operate in the public eye and are subject to intense scrutiny by the media and constituents. This is especially so in cases involving severe, shocking, and violent crimes. Sadly, prosecutorial misconduct can cause wrongful convictions.
As a result, prosecutors sometimes make the mistake of devoting all resources to prosecuting a certain suspect rather than searching for other possible motives or evidence that might lead to another suspect. They can do this at the urging of law enforcement. A prosecutor’s enthusiasm in this regard can cause them to ignore potentially exculpatory evidence or other factors that point away from you.
Even when it appears possible that another person committed the crime, prosecutors can be tempted to disregard such evidence and focus solely on obtaining a conviction, even if it results in a wrongful conviction. Though prosecutor misconduct differs from police misconduct, law enforcement, and police officers often operate under this same pressure.
Furthermore, aggressive prosecutors’ offices, oppressive interrogation tactics, and false incentives can lead to false confessions from arrestees.
Suppressing or Fabricating Evidence
The most common examples of prosecutorial misconduct involve withholding exculpatory evidence or evidence that might lead to the exoneration of the person suspected of the crime. Once a prosecutor publicly identifies and detains a viable suspect for a serious crime, thus satisfying public outcry and media inquiry, they may be reluctant to acknowledge evidence or information that does not support their case against the defendant.
This situation underscores the tension between a prosecutor’s desire for a conviction and their duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense. At a minimum, a prosecutor may downplay or ignore exculpatory evidence. At the other extreme, a prosecutor may actively hide such evidence from the suspect’s defense attorney, destroy evidence, or fabricate other evidence supporting his or her case.
Such actions by prosecutors involve serious professional misconduct that can result in convicting the wrong person. When evidence is manipulated in such a manner, the justice system, heralded for its ability to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, cannot function normally, thus leading to wrongful convictions.
Improperly Relying on Unreliable Witnesses
Finally, a prosecutor may commit misconduct and interfere with the proper administration of justice in a criminal case when they base or prove criminal charges on the testimony of an inherently unreliable witness.
By using jailhouse informants, who are readily available and eager to provide testimony against defendants in exchange for reduced sentences, a prosecutor may use an unreliable witness to ignore the untruths of false testimony or rely on knowingly false evidence. Since the informant’s motive is purely for self-gain, and since they have nothing to lose by testifying, the informant may not be entirely truthful.
When an informant’s testimony is the primary evidence behind a criminal conviction, it can be unreliable. This increases the possibility of a wrongful conviction for innocent people.
Appeals and Prosecutorial Misconduct
There has been no shortage of cases in the news recently where courts have overturned criminal convictions based on the improper actions of a prosecutor. While prosecutors sometimes make honest mistakes, prosecutorial misconduct can occur when a prosecutor focuses on a convenient suspect rather than the correct suspect, suppresses, hides, or even fabricates specific evidence, or improperly relies on an unreliable witness. Prosecutorial misconduct can lead to the post-conviction overturning of the conviction on appeal.
While it can be challenging to prove the existence of prosecutorial misconduct in a criminal case, it is not impossible and has occurred in some cases. Suppose you believe you have valid and reliable evidence that prosecutorial misconduct has occurred and that someone has been wrongfully convicted of a crime. In that case, you should contact that person’s legal counsel immediately.
Evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, including the rejection of other possible suspects, the improper manipulation of evidence, and reliance on unreliable witnesses, all can constitute grounds for a conviction to be overturned on appeal. Such evidence can be reviewed by the state court of appeals, the state supreme court, or another higher appeals court and may result in overturning the person’s criminal conviction.
Additionally, evolving criminal law, DNA evidence, and other evidence of innocence based on new technology and new evidence lead to new exoneration cases and exonerees with some frequency. For more information on this, visit the Innocence Project and look at the wrongful conviction cases – especially death row and death penalty cases – their advocacy has successfully overturned.
You Should Have Someone Advocating for You
You have rights as a defendant. The U.S. Constitution and the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court guarantee those rights. But sometimes, those rights become secondary to prosecutors’ goals, aspirations, and daily realities. Sometimes, you need a criminal defense attorney advocating for you to ensure people and the criminal justice system respect those rights.
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