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Injurisprudence,prosecutorial misconduct orprosecutorial overreach is "an illegal act orfailing to act, on the part of aprosecutor, especially an attempt to sway thejury towrongly convict adefendant or to impose a harsher than appropriate punishment."[1] It is similar toselective prosecution. Prosecutors are bound by a set of rules which outline fair and dispassionate conduct.[2]
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In late 1993, the6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled thatJohn Demjanjuk had been a victim of prosecutorial misconduct during a 1986 trial in whichfederal prosecutors withheld evidence. Demjanjuk'ssentence was overturned, but he lost when his case was retried. SeeBrady v Maryland.
In the 1995murder trial ofO. J. Simpson, the defense argued thatLos Angeles Police DepartmentdetectiveMark Fuhrman had plantedevidence at thecrime scene. Although Fuhrman denied the allegations, Simpson was foundnot guilty, although he was later held liable for the deaths in a civil suit filed by the families of the victims. InUSA Today (August 24, 1995),Francis Fukuyama stated, "[Such defenses lead to] a distrust ofgovernment and the belief that public authorities are in a vastconspiracy to violate therights of individuals." However, such misconduct may actually be widespread in the United States. "It’s a result-oriented process today, fairness be damned,"Robert Merkle, formerU.S. Attorney for theMiddle District of Florida, said.[3] Prosecutors are protected fromcivil liability even when they knowingly and maliciously break the law in order to secure convictions, and the doctrine ofharmless error can be used by appellate courts to uphold convictions despite such illegal tactics, which some argue gives prosecutors few incentives to comply with the law.[4]
In 2011 a Texas man,Michael Morton was released from prison after serving nearly 25 years for the murder of his wife in 1987. He was released after DNA evidence pointed to another man as the killer.[5] The prosecutor,Ken Anderson later pleaded guilty to withholding evidence that could have helped Morton fight the murder charge. He was sentenced to spend 10 days in jail and was also disbarred.[6]
Despite such, the defense has been successful in roughly 1 out of 6 times it has been used from 1970 to 2003. During that period, judges have cited misconduct by prosecutors as a reason to dismiss charges, reverse convictions, or reduce sentences in 2,012 cases, according to a study by theCenter for Public Integrity released in 2003; the researchers looked at 11,452 cases in which misconduct was alleged.[7]
A debate persists over the meaning of the term. Prosecutors have asked judges to stop using the term to refer to an unintentional error, and to restrict its use to describe a breach of professional ethics.E. Norman Veasey, the chief justice ofDelaware Supreme Court, answered one such request in 2003 by noting the term's extensive use in rulings over the past 60 years. "We believe it would be confusing to change the terminology in view of this history," he wrote in reply.
