{"id":10884,"date":"2024-10-28T09:51:53","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T16:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=10884"},"modified":"2024-10-28T09:53:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T16:53:46","slug":"prosecutors-taking-a-dive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=10884","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors Taking a Dive"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Anglo-American system of justice has always depended on having adversarial advocates to present both sides of any controversy. But what happens when a prosecutor “takes a dive” and joins a convicted defendant’s efforts to overturn his conviction? U. Utah Law Professor Paul Cassell has this op-ed<\/a> in The Hill on that subject. He focuses particularly on the Glossip case from Oklahoma presently before the Supreme Court, in which he represents the victim’s family. See this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that confessions of error are always inappropriate. Sometimes they are the right thing to do. The problem arises when political or ideological considerations enter into the picture. There is a strong basis for suspicion that is happening in the Glossip case, where the AG’s investigator never even asked the trial prosecutor about the meaning of cryptic notes that lie at the heart of the present case. In other cases, there is no doubt at all.<\/p>\n

From the article:<\/p>\n

The Glossip case mirrors an unfortunate trend. Recently other prosecutors have also confessed phantom or illusory \u201cerrors.\u201d Earlier this year, the Third Circuit unanimously rejected Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner\u2019s confession of error in a death penalty case. The circuit affirmed a trial court order sanctioning the DA\u2019s Office for failing to fully investigate the purported error and for misrepresenting that the office had properly informed the victim\u2019s family what was happening.<\/p>\n

Another example comes from a Texas death penalty case, in which a new Travis County DA was elected on an anti-death penalty platform. Just a few days later, the DA\u2019s Office confessed error regarding Areli Escobar\u2019s capital sentence for the rape and murder of Bianca Maldonado, his 17-year-old neighbor. The significance of that local prosecutor\u2019s dubious admission remains pending before the Supreme Court to resolve, after it decides Glossip\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

A final example comes from Los Angeles, where George Gasc\u00f3n was elected district attorney with the help of significant outside campaign money. He then set about reversing capital judgments in the county by systematically conceding error regardless of the facts of particular cases. Gasc\u00f3n is running for reelection in November.<\/p>\n

What appears to be motivating prosecutors to \u201ctake a dive\u201d in these cases is that, at least in their jurisdictions, it\u2019s good politics. But enmeshing victims\u2019 families in unfounded litigation based on bogus errors is cruel. And the larger casualty is public confidence in the criminal justice system. The public sees headlines about prosecutors admitting errors and wrongly assumes that the system can\u2019t be trusted to reach accurate results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gasc\u00f3n’s misdeeds may have been good politics during the Floyd delirium, but I’m not sure they remain so. The polls indicate he may well be cruising for a bruising eight days from today. That plus a (hopefully) landslide win<\/a> for Proposition 36 and the recall<\/a> of Alameda County’s woke DA would be powerful evidence that the political tide has indeed turned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Anglo-American system of justice has always depended on having adversarial advocates to present both sides of any controversy. But what happens when a prosecutor “takes a dive” and joins a convicted defendant’s efforts to overturn his conviction? U. Utah Law Professor Paul Cassell has this op-ed in The Hill on that subject. He focuses particularly on the Glossip case from Oklahoma presently before the Supreme Court, in which he represents the victim’s family. See this post. This is not to say that confessions of error are always inappropriate. Sometimes they are the right thing to do. The problem arises when political or ideological considerations enter into the picture. There is a strong basis for suspicion that is happening in the Glossip case, where the AG’s investigator never even asked the trial prosecutor about the meaning of cryptic notes that lie at the heart of the present case. In other cases, there is no doubt at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,68,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-prosecutors","category-u-s-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nProsecutors Taking a Dive - Crime & Consequences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=10884\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Prosecutors Taking a Dive - Crime & Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Anglo-American system of justice has always depended on having adversarial advocates to present both sides of any controversy. 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