How far do lawyers go to win a victory? Ethics. That’s the name of the game. One Virginia lawyer knew a man was coached to give testimony to ensure a prosecutor put away another man. He says he was bound by the code of ethics to keep silent, that is until last year.
“The situation changed last year, when Mr. Smith took one more run at the state bar’s ethics counsel. “I was upset by the conduct of the prosecutor,” Mr. Smith wrote in an anguished letter, “and the situation has bothered me ever since.””
“Reversing course, the bar told Mr. Smith he could now talk, and he did. His testimony caused a state court judge in Yorktown, Va., to commute the death sentence of Daryl R. Atkins to life on Thursday, citing prosecutorial misconduct.”
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Prosecutorial misconduct has been and continues to be a palpable problem in this country. For example, it is prosecutorial misconduct if the government criminally charges people for exercising their constitutional rights, such as their right to free speech. Accordingly, to correct this impropriety, criminal defense attorneys must acquire the wherewithal to file prosecutorial misconduct motions whenever warranted. Most defense attorneys are reticent to file these motions, because they are lazy, do not know the law, or believe that doing so is politically incorrect. However, after repeatedly fielding such motions, hopefully our judiciary, most of whom were prosecutors, will wake-up and realize that prosecutorial misconduct brings our criminal justice system further into disrepute because it is unlawful, offensive, insulting, ignorant, and increases the risk of convicting innocent defendants.
KEVIN JAY LONG
MEDICOLEGAL1@JUNO.COM