The lead item in the first issue of the eJournal that was sent to me (vol. 13, no. 51) features an article responding to an article of mine. My article is “The Use of Unethical and Unconstitutional Practices and Policies by Prosecutors’ Offices,” 52 Washburn L. Jour. 1 (2012). The response is by Charles E. Maclean, "Anecdote as Stereotype: One Prosecutor's Response to Professor Monroe Freedman's Article 'The Use of Unethical and Unconstitutional Practices and Policies by Prosecutors' Offices'." Allow me a brief reply.
I illustrate those unethical and unconstitutional policies and practices with actual cases defended by prosecutors’ offices and with public statements by prosecutors’ offices (including the U.S. Dept. of Justice). Professor Maclean refers to those cases and public statements as “a few anecdotes.” He then claims – with no empirical evidence at all – that most prosecutors “selected their prosecutorial career path to do good works, to serve the public, to seek justice, and to protect the defendant as much as the victim and society.”
I also relied on a 2001 computerized study by Fred Zacharias showing that there have been only 100 federal and state disciplinary cases against prosecutors in the previous century. Maclean responds that the reality of sanctions today is “starkly different,” noting that from 2001 to 2012, at least thirty prosecutors have been disbarred or forced to resign and retire. However, Maclean’s supporting footnote shows that at least half of those cases involve conduct that have nothing to do with the subject of my article, which is improper prosecutorial conduct directed against criminal defendants. Rather, Maclean’s cases include conduct such as obtaining controlled substances by deceit; embezzling funds from the Connecticut Association of Prosecutors; conviction of criminal extortion; conviction of “sexual impositions on staff members” of his office; conviction for extortion; soliciting, accepting, and extorting bribes to fix criminal cases (4 different cases); prosecuting a judge without probable cause; sexually assaulting two women under color of law; embezzling traffic fines for personal use; practicing as a prosecutor without a license; distributing over $42,000 in witness vouchers to unauthorized persons; and repeatedly stealing cocaine from an evidence locker and replacing it with flour.
It's possible that there has been some increase in disciplinary proceedings against prosecutors – prompted in major part by Innocence Projects that have exposed prosecutorial abuse – and if so, it is a welcome development. But it hardly justifies the kinds of ethical and constitutional abuses of defendants’ rights that I have documented, and which show little if any signs of diminishing.
[links added by JJS]