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Monday, March 09, 2015

"...prosecutor Robert Murray appended a confession to a suspect’s statement without the suspect’s knowledge."

You know, I consider myself fairly cynical, but even for me, this is surprising.  Prosecutors look out for No. 1 - The Washington Post: "Tennessee law professor and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds takes on prosecutor misconduct in a column for USA Today. He begins with a case from California in which Kern County prosecutor Robert Murray appended a confession to a suspect’s statement without the suspect’s knowledge. Incredibly, the State of California, via Attorney General Kamala Harris, decided to appeal the case. The state’s key argument: That putting a fake confession in the transcript wasn’t “outrageous” because it didn’t involve physical brutality, like chaining someone to a radiator and beating him with a hose. Well, no. It just involved an officer of the court knowingly producing a fraudulent document in order to secure an illicit advantage. If Harris really thinks that knowingly producing a fraudulent document to secure an illicit advantage isn’t “outrageous,” then perhaps she slept through her legal ethics courses...

Meanwhile, Murray suffered no actual punishment for his wrongdoing. As a report in the New York Observer notes: “For reasons beyond comprehension, he still works for the District Attorney Lisa Green in Kern County, Calif.” Murray does face the possibility of discipline from the California bar, but even disbarment would be a light punishment for knowingly producing a false document in a criminal proceeding. Our criminal justice system depends on honesty. It’s also based on the principle that people who do wrong should be punished. Prosecutors, however, often avoid any consequences for their misbehavior, even when it is repeated. Worse yet, prosecutors are also immune from civil suit, under a Supreme Court-created doctrine called “absolute immunity” that is one of the greatest, though least discussed, examples of judicial activism in history. So prosecutors won’t punish prosecutors, and victims of prosecutors’ wrongdoing can’t even sue them for damages."

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