Word: prosecutors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When Davis went to interview the man's accuser, she learned that the woman was deaf and unable to communicate with anyone except her mother. The prosecutor couldn't make a case without an unbiased third-party interpreter, so Davis asked him to release her client. He refused, declaring that he had nine months to get an indictment. When that time was up, the prosecutor let the man go. "I know he's guilty," he told her. "At least he did nine months in jail...
...power, if not the arrogance, of prosecutors would grate on Davis throughout her 12 years at the D.C. Public Defender Service, three as its director. Now a law professor at American University, she has made a mission of exposing that power--on radio and TV and in a new book, Arbitrary Justice--with hopes of reining it in. Her task, lonely at first, has gained support since North Carolina prosecutor Mike Nifong lost his job and his law license for hiding evidence in the now defunct rape case against Duke lacrosse players. (On July 26 he is scheduled to face...
...When prosecutors pick which criminal charges to file, they need have only probable cause, or reasonable belief that the suspect committed the crimes charged. This low standard creates room to pile on the most severe charges possible to bully a defendant into a plea bargain. If a case ends up going before a jury, the prosecutor would have to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. So why give him the chance, Davis argues, to "intimidate, harass or coerce a guilty plea" with charges he knows he cannot prove at trial? Davis would bump the probable-cause standard to something...
...Constitution requires a grand jury to indict a suspect before he can be tried for a federal felony, and about half the states have a similar setup. This panel of ordinary people is supposed to check the prosecutor's power by making him present a preliminary case in a kind of minitrial, though one without a defense attorney. But because the prosecutor gets to decide which witnesses to call and which questions to ask, Davis wants to make the process less one-sided by requiring prosecutors to tell jurors about evidence that helps the suspect...
...Gonzales' woes actually began even before he was sworn in. He took his seat as a protestor held a pink banner reading "Impeach" behind him and to yells of "Impeach him!" from protestors in the room, who were quickly escorted out. Specter threatened the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys last year and a Senate "trial" to hold in contempt those Administration officials refusing to comply with Senate subpoenas. Then Leahy gaveled in the proceedings, saying "the Attorney General has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people." (When...