Monday, June 18, 2018

The Intercept: State DA association understates extent of prosecutor misconduct

A recent Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing covered that panel's fourth "interim charge" - essentially a study assignment the House Speaker gives committees in between Texas' once-every-two-years legislative sessions - related to both prosecutor misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel (aka, defense misconduct).

Grits had analyzed the key debates from that hearing related to ineffective assistance. And now, my neighbor Jordan Smith has a report on the prosecutor-misconduct portion of that debate for The Intercept. Jordan explored in some depth, and ably refuted, the state prosecutor association's claims that legislators should interpret the low number of prosecutors sanctioned for misconduct as evidence that prosecutorial misconduct doesn't (or barely) exists.

Between those two reports, one can get a decent sense of the terms of debate presented to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee surrounding that interim charge.

11 comments:

David Alex is Unethical said...

"And the number of Fox attacks on Chickens has also diminished to almost zero," said the Fox.

...If you search online for “prosecutorial misconduct,” he said, you’ll find a lot of complaints and “supposed data that is rarely independently scrutinized” the way Soule had done...

ahem...http://www.prosecutorialaccountability.com/

Steven Michael Seys said...

It's obvious that the state prosecutors' association is a mutual masturbation society. There's no regard for truth or justice, merely protection of the members. The same can be said to a lesser degree of the state bar association. Any group that polices itself is entirely unaccountable.

Anonymous said...

You're citing to The Intercept as an objective source on this topic? Seriously? This article ably refutes nothing when it comes to the issue of "prosecutor misconduct" in Texas. How does an analysis of a circumstance in Orange County, CA that happened years ago have any bearing whatsoever on the current practices in Texas? I get that it's your objective to be a liberal shill for the left leaning pro-criminal advocacy groups as the next legislative session approaches, but come on, Grits. You can do better than this.

Anonymous said...

To be fair the Daily Stormer didn't even touch on this issue to give it the proper slant Oberkomander

Unknown said...

Is the Angela Davis quoted in the article the same Angela Davis who was involved with the Black Panthers and the Berkeley circus in the late '60's, early 70's?
I know that the rock star lawyer Mike Tigar teaches, or taught, at American University, but if this is the same Angela Davis, everyone should consider the source.
However, one positive aspect is that no one has mentioned Michael Morton, the Kenneth McDuff of Texas prosecutorial misconduct. Thank you, because that has been addressed and hopefully rectified by the new Discovery rules across the State.

Anonymous said...

You're talking about Angela Yvonne Davis, the article is referencing Angela J. Davis...

"...professor of law at AU's Washington College of Law, is an expert in criminal law and procedure with a specific focus on prosecutorial power and racism in the criminal justice system. Davis previously served as director of the D.C. Public Defender Service, where she began as a staff attorney representing indigent juveniles and adults. She also served as executive director of the National Rainbow Coalition and is a former law clerk of the Honorable Theodore R. Newman, the former Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals."

The only thing they have in common is that they are African American women who share 2/3 of a full name.

No one wants your red herring for lunch.

Anonymous said...

@5:42-

Ken Anderson
John Bradley
Charles Sebesta

You've sited nothing.

Anonymous said...

@5:42

You said ...pro-criminal...?
Proprietorial misconduct = anti-citizen
Wrongful convictions due to proprietorial misconduct = pro-criminal since the criminal stays free.

Only low-life prosecutors cheat to win. That is criminal.

Anonymous said...

What is the real misconduct?

Ninety eight percent of the time the rapist doesn’t spend a day behind bars. This is from Crime and Justice with Ashleigh Banfield on the left leaning CNN.

Anonymous said...

Correction to my comment @04:29:00 PM

I meant "prosecutorial" not proprietorial (twice). Darn spellchecker didn't have it, does now.

I now know the word "proprietorial" and will forget as soon as possible.

Anonymous said...

@6:00-

You'll have to clarify your point. Are you stating that Prosecutors should partake in more misconduct to catch some of the 98% that don't spend a day behind bars? Or are you stating that Prosecutors are just that bad at getting convictions, even with the rampant amount of misconduct?