Trayvon Martin, Angela Corey, and Prosecutors' Ethics

Special Prosecutor Angela Corey used her press conference to establish three things.

First, her investigative team is highly professional,  and “worked tirelessly” in a “never-ending search for the truth and a quest to always do the right thing for the right reason.”  We are “not only ministers of justice,” we are “seekers of the truth,” and we “stay true to that mission.”

Second, Ms. Corey and her team “did not come to this decision lightly.”  Only after they were able to establish “the facts” and “the truth” through an “extensive” and “full investigation”  has “the search for justice for Trayvon ... brought us to this night” (i.e., the press conference announcing the filing of charges).

Third, Ms. Corey would not have filed charges until her team had established beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman is guilty, and they had eliminated all affirmative defenses, including excusable or justifiably homicide.

Florida Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8, cmt.: “Florida has adopted the American Bar Association Standards of Criminal Justice Relating to the Prosecution Function. This is the product of prolonged and careful deliberation by lawyers experienced in criminal prosecution and defense and should be consulted for further guidance.”

ABA Std. 3-1.4(a): “A prosecutor should not make ... an extrajudicial statement that a reasonable person would expect to be disseminated by means of public communication, if the prosecutor ... reasonably should know that it will have a substantial likelihood of prejudicing a criminal proceeding.”  Cmt. to 3.1: “the opinion of the lawyer on the guilt of the defendant, the merits of the case, or the merits of the evidence in the case” is “ordinarily likely to have a substantial likelihood of prejudicing a criminal proceeding.”

Corey:  “We know only one category as prosecutors, and that is a ‘V.’  It’s not a ‘B,’ it’s not a ‘W,’ it’s not an ‘H.’  It’s ‘V,’ for victim.  That’s who we work tirelessly for.  And that’s all we know, is justice for our victims.”  Corey also referred to “our precious victims.”

ABA Std. 3-2.1, cmt.:  “The idea that the criminal law ... is designed to vindicate public rather than private interests is now firmly established.”
ABA Std. 3-3.2, cmt.: “the prosecutor’s client is not the victim.”

Corey:  The first thing my team and I did upon being appointed was to meet with Trayvon’s family and pray with them.  “We opened our meeting with prayer.”  Also, Ms. Corey thanked “all those people across this country who have sent positive energy and prayers our way,” and she asked them to continue to pray for Trayvon’s family and for her team.  “Remember, it is Trayvon’s family that are our constitutional victims....”

At this point, do we need the due process of a trial by jury?  Can Zimmerman receive the due process of a trial by an impartial jury?  Why should anyone care?

Comments

[Rick Underwood]

Thanks.

[Rick Underwood]

Monroe's post is great, and I will run it by my students. I saw bits and pieces of the press conference while sitting at a bar in Charleston, S.C., and pretty much missed the point. She did fend off questions about the evidence several times, and I guess that faked me out. I missed the forest by looking for specific trees. By the way, this is a very controversial prosecutor (check out the Fernandez prosecution). The charge (or overcharge?) in the Zimmerman case was, I think, both predictable and political. I went back and Googled the Dershowitz observations and they were very interesting.

[John Steele]

Monroe, do you have a link to that? I will try to find one. Prosecutors "work tirelessly for [the victim]"? I'm not sure I've ever heard that said that way before.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

"The charge (or overcharge?) in the Zimmerman case was, I think, both predictable and political."

Indeed, I made the same point in the PrawfsBlawg thread that John linked to previously (and I was inclined to see this as overcharging):
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2012/04/the-selection-of-charges-in-the-zimmerman-case.html

[John Steele]

Here's the link. Monroe, would you mind it if I added the link as an update at the end of your post?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1r-idmJTK3I

More thoughts from George Conk at Otherwise:

http://blackstonetoday.blogspot.com/2012/04/with-god-on-our-side-angela-corey-and.html

I don't like some of her opening rhetoric here. It does not flow from what I conceive of as the proper role of a prosecutor. Admittedly, at 3:30 she does make reference to the duty she owes to an accused. The odd passage about working for the victim begins around 13:00. She also discusses the no-contact rule. To be fair to the prosecutor, she did nothing to specifically stigmatize the accused. The bit about praying with Trayvon Martin's parents and their lawyer begins around 22:45.

In saying all that, I also want to acknowledge that the truly disturbing event is the death of the teenager, Trayvon Martin.

[Monroe Freedman]

John, the only thing I disagree with you on is my view that she did *everythng* to stigmatize the accused. Do you think a potential juror could have listened to that pretrial publicity without believing that Zimmerman is guilty, based on "the facts" and "the truth," which was established by her "tireless" investigators' "extensive" and "full" search for the truth, and which was the necessary basis for her decision to prosecute Zimmerman for murder? And, of course, her team's terrific investigation established also that Zimmerman has no viable affirmative defenses.

[John Steele]

Monroe, I didn't hear her say, for example, what Patrick Fitzgerald said about Governor Blagojevich -- that Abraham Lincoln would rolling over in his grave -- or what Nifong said about the Duke lacrosse players -- "hooligans" whose culpability is shown by the fact that they hired defense counsel.

I have questions about her comments about the affirmative defense and her relationship to it. She seemed to say that if the law (Stand Your Ground) is asserted, she "will fight that." I seem to recall that over at the Volokh site they have a nice discussion of how SYG plays out. It struck me as odd -- but I'm not expert on this -- to hear her talking about fighting a law that she is sworn to uphold.

Also, there was a very quick passage where, to my ears, she was finessing some legal issues and was defensive about her decision making. She talked about the affirmative defense affecting what level of homicide the conduct might be, but to my ears the rhetoric was suggestive that she thought she could disregard self-defense and SYG when she made her charging decision. I question whether that's right or not.

[Monroe Freedman]

I also agree with MR 3.8(f), which says that the prosecutor should "refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused," unless the statements are "necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor's action" (which the information she filed had already done), and that also "serves a legitimate law enforcement purpose" (like warning the public that a fugitive is armed and dangerous).

3.8(f) hasn't been adopted in Florida, but it is consistent with the ABA Standards, which have been adopted there.

[Stephen Winburn]

Corey actually libeled Zimmerman in the Capias request. She falsified official documents in order to defame him by only reporting four cherry picked 911 calls by Zimmerman in which the suspect happened to be black. The Sanford city website had all of Zimmerman's calls up before they were asked to remove them. The records spanned approximately two years and had many more than four calls documented and these calls included most of the major race classifications. This is knowingly misleading the courts.