“Her license remains active and in good standing.” The words rang out at me as I stared at a newspaper article in the Indianapolis Star. It was about the conduct – or misconduct – of a woman named Gillian DePrez Keiffner who is a Deputy Prosecutor there. During trial, she had vouched for the credibility of the complaining witness in a sexual assault case, demeaned and insulted the defense attorney and asked the defendant which of the two 14 year old girls he liked touching better. A few weeks ago, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the man’s conviction finding that her conduct was improper and deprived him of a fair trial.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of Willie Jerome Manning, who this past month, received a new trial thanks to the Mississippi Supreme Court, finding that exculpatory information was not turned over to the defense.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of Linda Carty, who is on death row and just a few weeks ago won the right to have a hearing to investigate claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Both a former DEA agent and the only eyewitness to the crime claim that prosecutors threatened them into testifying against Carty.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of former federal prosecutor and now Orange County Superior Court Judge Terri Flynn-Peister, who ordered a sheriff’s deputy to only turn over four out of 196 pages of notes about an informant.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of Darryl Gumm and codefendant Michael Bies, whose 1992 murder convictions were overturned at the end of January by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals because of “flagrant” and “severe” prosecutorial misconduct. Both Gumm and Bies used to be on death row.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of R. David Favata, a prosecutor in Delaware whose unprofessional and insulting behavior toward a pro-se defendant and improper vouching for a witness led the Delaware Supreme Court, at the end of January, to reverse a murder conviction and death sentence.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of Jennifer Darby, a prosecutor in Colorado Springs. Her “pattern and history of prosecutorial misconduct” including providing false information about a defendant at sentencing, led a trial court judge to enter a dismissal in a third case involving her in the last 6 months.
Her license remains active and in good standing. It reminded me of prosecutors Robert Spira and Paul Vinegrad, the latest objects of Judge Kozinski’s affections. A video of his lambasting of the CA prosecutor trying desperately to salvage the conviction Johnny Baca has gone viral and caused quite an uproar. Kozinski is no stranger to demanding prosecutorial accountability, as I mentioned in my first column for the Law Tribune exactly one year ago. Kozinski’s threats of prosecution for lying prosecutors resulted in California dropping the appeal against Baca, but the viral video cannot be unseen.
Her license remains active and in good standing. Finally, it reminded me of Victor Santiago, who had his conviction reversed because of a “deliberate pattern of improper conduct” by prosecutor Terrance Mariani.
The common theme here seems to be repeated misconduct by select prosecutors with no repercussions beyond new trials for the accused. While that, in of itself, is a just solution, that does nothing to ensure justice across the board. The concerns expressed by Judge Kozinksi and others seem quite valid: without any personal consequences to individual prosecutors, there is no barrier to them repeating their improper conduct in court.
Prosecutors are not the same as defense attorneys. Defense attorneys have one responsibility – and that is to zealous represent the interests of their individual clients. Prosecutors have no individual client and represent the people of the state as a whole. Their responsibility is to ensure justice, whatever that may be. It is not for them to adopt a “win at all costs” mentality. The prosecutorial power should never be a game, with the winner being the one who gets the most convictions. Yet it is precisely that mentality that leads to these unfortunate instances of misconduct which results in injustices in several ways: either innocent individuals get convicted by hook or crook, or guilty individuals go free when courts reverse convictions for due process violations.
Disciplining of prosecutors by ethics boards or internal review committees remains infrequent and elusive. While defense attorneys are routinely “grieved” by disgruntled clients, it is unknown if prosecutors ever are – by anybody – despite demonstrated misconduct. The grievance committee does not see it as their responsibility to initiate an investigation; appellate courts will find prosecutorial impropriety but not refer the individual to the grievance committee and whether the Division of Criminal Justice has an internal review mechanism is known only to them.
I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that all prosecutors are unethical or engage in misconduct or are caught up in winning rather than ensuring justice. Far from it. Most are honest, hard-working, ethical and reasonable. But there are those who are not, unfortunately, in this State and elsewhere. Whether they are motivated by zeal or a desire to win or a plain dislike for defendants, I do not know.
But justice is not served – the community is not served – when prosecutors are permitted to repeatedly engage in misconduct without any consequences whatsoever. There is a national discussion brewing on how best to ensure that prosecutorial improprieties are minimized and eliminated. I do not subscribe to Judge Kozinski’s view of prosecuting prosecutors, but I do think there needs to be accountability when there has been a finding of impropriety. Every incidence of misconduct – particularly when it results in a reversal of a conviction – undermines confidence in the criminal justice system itself. The system needs to police itself and hold accountable errant prosecutors so we can respect the authority of the system itself. One need look no further than Ferguson and its aftermath to see how dangerous it is when when our faith in figures of authority is lost.
The Judiciary Committee of the state legislature has before it a bill or a proposal for oversight of the Division of Criminal Justice. From what I can tell the bill seems to be nothing more than a title – an idea or a concept. There is no language attached to it and I cannot think of what language might be suitable.
But it is the prompt for a discussion. A discussion that everyone needs to have, however unpleasant and difficult it might be: what is to be done, if anything, to prosecutors who repeatedly violate the law and engage in misconduct?
Here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it:
[This is my latest column for the CT Law Tribune.]