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Post by Rev. Agave on Dec 20, 2010 14:39:14 GMT -6
The only reason, that I can see, that you want such a rule is to prevent a person being convicted of a crime that someone else did. In other words, you want to prevent prosecutors from withholding evidence that someone else did it. But that situation is already covered by the rules. If a prosecutor has evidence that someone has been convicted of a crime that he someone else did, he would violate the rules by not disclosing that. You're not following, so I am giving up. Honky, I genuinely want to understand your point. Can you give my a hypothetical example of how the rules are deficient? Give me an example of how, under the rules, credible and material exonerating evidence can knowingly be withheld by a prosecutor. How would your proposed rule remedy that? What is the purpose for your rule? How would more evidence that a convict is guilty be beneficial other than to exonerate someone else or defend the conviction on retrial? |
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Post by honkybouffant on Dec 20, 2010 15:16:23 GMT -6
You're not following, so I am giving up. Honky, I genuinely want to understand your point. Can you give my a hypothetical example of how the rules are deficient? Give me an example of how, under the rules, credible and material exonerating evidence can knowingly be withheld by a prosecutor. I can't. It isn't meant to. To stop the prosecutors from withholding evidence of guilt. I know, they wouldn't want to do that anyway would they? But that's kinda my point. I'll start over. If the prosecutor was like the judge, and so occupied a neutral, fact-finding position, searching for justice pure and simple, then the guidelines would reflect that. Guidelines, or rules, that bind judges will push both ways, ensuring that the judge is not too harsh and not too soft. But the rules you published push one way only. They forbid the prosecutor from being unfairly harsh or over-zealous in trying to prove GUILT. That tells you that the prosecutor is not a neutral figure in the court, whose job it is to find justice. Rather, he is a biased figure, and his job is to push one way only. The rules stop him from overdoing it, or cheating in order to perform his nominal function better. It is the job of the process to find justice. But it is the job of the prosecutor within that process to push one way only. |
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Post by Rev. Agave on Dec 20, 2010 15:25:21 GMT -6
Honky, I genuinely want to understand your point. Can you give my a hypothetical example of how the rules are deficient? Give me an example of how, under the rules, credible and material exonerating evidence can knowingly be withheld by a prosecutor. I can't. It isn't meant to. To stop the prosecutors from withholding evidence of guilt. I know, they wouldn't want to do that anyway would they? But that's kinda my point. I'll start over. If the prosecutor was like the judge, and so occupied a neutral, fact-finding position, searching for justice pure and simple, then the guidelines would reflect that. Guidelines, or rules, that bind judges will push both ways, ensuring that the judge is not too harsh and not too soft. But the rules you published push one way only. They forbid the prosecutor from being unfairly harsh or over-zealous in trying to prove GUILT. That tells you that the prosecutor is not a neutral figure in the court, whose job it is to find justice. Rather, he is a biased figure, and his job is to push one way only. The rules stop him from overdoing it, or cheating in order to perform his nominal function better. It is the job of the process to find justice. But it is the job of the prosecutor within that process to push one way only. Thank you, I see where you are coming from. For what it is worth, the phrase "the job of the prosecutor is not to convict, but to seek justice" is not something I made up. That statement exists, in one form or another, in the codes of probably every state. Undoubtedly ours is an adversarial system, but, ideally, prosecutors should not be concerned simply with scoring convictions and maximum sentences. However, I know it doesn't always work that way. The drive to win for the sake winning is a definite effect of our judicial system. |
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