Prosecutorial sanctions: Three time’s a charm
In keeping with “Should prosecutors be held accountable” week, the 9th Circuit issued this scathing opinion, chastising two prosecutors for egregious violations:
The government egregiously failed to meet its constitutional obligations under Brady and Giglio. It failed to even make inquiry as to conviction records, plea bargains, and other discoverable materials concerning key witnesses until after trial began. It repeatedly misrepresented to the district court that all such documents had been disclosed prior to trial. The government did not admit to the court that it failed to disclose Brady/Giglio material until after many of the key witnesses had testified and been released. Even then, it failed to turn over some 650 documents until the day the district court declared a mistrial and submitted those documents to the court only after the indictment had been dismissed.
The Court concludes with:
This is prosecutorial misconduct in its highest form; conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution; and conduct which should be deterred by the strongest sanction available.
Despite that, the opinion declines to name the prosecutors in question. Fortunately, Mike at C&F is not so shy. He’s going to send a copy of the opinion to the Nevada State Bar Association. Maybe something will come of it. It should.
I don’t know how true it is, but when I was in law school one of my professors asserted that State Bars would not try to discipline AUSA’s. He stated that the federal government has a policy of trying the case with all the assets at its disposal until the State Bar went broke or gave up.
Does anybody have any first hand knowledge of this?