02 February 2015

System For Disciplining Bad Prosecutors In California Still Broken

A 2010 report by the Northern California Innocence Project cited 707 cases in which state courts found prosecutorial misconduct over 11 years. Only six of the prosecutors were disciplined, and the courts upheld 80% of the convictions in spite of the improprieties, the study found.
From here.

A recent case in the 9th Circuit discussed in the linked article involves prosecutors who tried to defend a conviction in which an informant and the prosecuting attorney both lied in open court, but neither suffered any consequences for it, state judges upheld the conviction, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in a federal collateral attack on the judgment after a scathing oral argument.

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