Friday, August 10, 2012
Grits on break; guest bloggers to sub
Well, the bags are packed, reservations secured, a house sitter arranged, and Grits is off for a couple of weeks of much-needed vacation (a trip delayed briefly, much to my chagrin, by Hurricane Ernesto). I've asked several excellent, over-qualified replacements to guest blog in my absence, so be kind to them. Even so, posting will likely be relatively light until I return. As always, thanks for reading. Hasta luego ...
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11 comments:
Watch out for tropical depression 7 she is tracking just north of Ernesto. Have a good time.
Have a great holiday!
Have fun! Though I'd miss your posts, I'm sure I'd enjoy your guest bloggers.
have a great holiday
Have a Blast! Relax have a few!!
By all means, have a well-deserved vacation... just don't stay too long: we'll all miss you. And, yes, we will be kind to the sub bloggers, gowd bless them! Really, thanks again for a job well done by sub bloggers too.
Come on readers, Scott rocks, Toss us a bone- police perjury, DA misconduct.
Tu necicitas? Read this...
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/rockwall-tx/TTSBB8QHRN8TEUA71/p2
Read and comment, this is blatant police perjury and the rest...
This is not only a comment on police perjury, and withheld evidence..
I am a fugitive and hope you will comment on the Rockwall website.
The trash... The US is selling you down the road, check, check..
Have fun b careful
I just ran across an interesting couple of paragraphs in a law review article about the history of public prosecutors. Since there has been a lot of discussion here about the subject of the power of prosecutors I thought it was particularly interesting that the article points out that prosecutors in the US have significantly more power and discretion than those in European countries. I think that's interesting because it seems to go against the concept that our government is more limited in power than European governments and, thus, we have more freedoms. Here's the quote:
In the United States, public prosecutions began to replace the system of private prosecutions long before the colonies gained their independence. 16 For example, in 1643, Virginia established the office of Attorney General. 17 Patterned largely after its English counterpart, this office allowed the Attorney General to initiate prosecutions of special importance to the Crown. 18 Although Connecticut was the first colony to enact a statute specifically providing for a system of local public prosecution, 19 Virginia established a formal system of county prosecuting attorneys in 1711. 20 Dutch settlements in the American colonies, including settlements in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, [517] Pennsylvania, and Delaware, often had the services of a scout, a figure akin to a sheriff and public prosecutor. 21 While the origin of the American public prosecutor remains an "historical enigma," 22 academics generally trace the roots of this figure to one of three European antecedents: the English, the Dutch, or the French. 23 Moreover, despite the fact that the American public prosecutor has something in common with each of these predecessors, it is undisputed that the American prosecutor has "powers and discretion" that are "vastly greater than those of any European prosecutor." 24 The importance of the office of public prosecutor in the United States was further reinforced by its shift in the nineteenth century from an appointive office to an elective office. 25 [518]
47 Ark. L. Rev. 511, 516-518
Here's another good quote on what is supposed to be the prosecutors role. Unfortunately, manhy prosecutors just don't get this:
Prosecutors in the United States occupy a dual role in the criminal justice system. "They are the only governmental officers responsible for obtaining convictions of the guilty in litigated criminal cases; but they also bear alone the state's considerable responsibility to see that no innocent person is prosecuted, convicted, or punished." 129 This dual role is in sharp contrast to the role of private counsel, whose primary obligation is to protect a client's interests. The Model Code of Professional Responsibility explicitly states that "the duty of a lawyer … is to represent his [544] client zealously within the bounds of the law." 130 This situation has lead one scholar to remark that the prosecutor's role is "much nearer that of a judicial officer than that of partisan advocate." 131 In Berger v. United States, 132 the United States Supreme Court formally recognized the distinctive role that a prosecutor plays in American society. The Court declared the following:The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape nor innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor - indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one. 133 [545] This duty of fairness has been held to apply even where the prosecutor strongly believes that the accused is guilty. 134
47 Ark. L. Rev. 511, 543-545
I will be happy to welome you back from vacation. Your guest bloggers have been very quiet and I for one will welcome getting back to business as usual.
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