There is a certain sort of criminal defendant that doesn’t—maybe shouldn’t—have any danger whatsoever. Their behavior is undisputed and so guilty, so disturbing, that no prosecutor can probably maintain a open mind in selecting to deliver the maximum exhausting charges towards them. The weight of public opinion and, greater essential, the records are so closely towards them that any prosecutor who has them in their crosshairs really can’t be objective, as we ideally would possibly assume them to be. Think Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Kaczynski, El Chapo, John Gotti, Osama bin Laden.
While this sort of defendant is rare, she or he does surface each occasionally. We agree that our prosecutors will withstand public outcry and decide whether to convey a case with total objectivity and professionalism. In theory, as a minimum, we want the prosecutor to work out the same diploma of “prosecutorial discretion”—which frequently favors a criminal target—as though the goal had been some random no one. That random no one deserves as much prosecutorial discretion as for the guy armed with a high-powered protection legal professional; perhaps even an attorney who these days emerged from the U.S. Legal professional’s office.
The Dahmer et al. Cases virtually don’t contain the want for discretion. There is not any danger that a prosecutor could forego those prosecutions. Each of those cases could have been res ipsa and guaranteed lawyer to the full quantity of the regulation. But what approximately instances like Jeffrey Epstein? There seems no doubt that Epstein, regardless of his high-quality commercial enterprise achievement and commendable philanthropic interest, has a sordid history of engaging in (criminal) bodily members of the family with and serial rape of underage ladies.
Those moves caused a reputedly light criminal prosecution by way of the state attorney’s workplace in West Palm Beach, Florida, and a contemporaneous and associated crook investigation utilizing the U.S. Lawyer in Miami that, particularly astonishingly given the reach of applicable federal statutes and a 53-page indictment, was basically folded into the local prosecution.
The prosecutions led to a non-prosecution agreement in the federal case and a guilty plea within the kingdom court action. Epstein registered as a sex wrongdoer and served a 13-month sentence in a private wing of a Palm Beach County prison, in which he was granted paintings release so he could visit his workplace every day. More relevant to this discussion, in exercise his discretion to say no to prosecute Epstein, the U.S. Legal professional went to first-rate lengths to accede to the requests of Epstein’s excessive-powered lawyers to preserve the deal under wraps—even going up to now, according to a federal district choose revisiting the case directly this yr, as violating the federal Crime Victims Reporting Act that requires federal prosecutors to inform sufferers of settlements in instances wherein they’re involved.
Let’s expect that the Epstein case is an outlier—we don’t know why the prosecutors did what they did and might in no way understand. But this situation permits us to look at the question, as a remember of regulation and prison ethics, of the limitations concerning a prosecutor’s discretion in identifying whether or not, and how leniently, to prosecute a defendant who has engaged in the criminal hobby.
Whenever discussing prosecutorial discretion, one ought to right away flip to Professor Bennett Gershman’s Prosecutorial Misconduct, 2nd Ed., Thomson Reuters. Succinctly, “[t]he prosecutor decides whether or not or now not to convey criminal expenses; who to rate; what costs to carry; whether a defendant will stand trial; plead guilty…. The prosecutor, in brief, holds power to invoke or deny punishment.” §4.1.
The ABA Criminal Justice Standards for the Prosecution Function (the requirements) 3-1.2 reminds us that the “number one responsibility of the prosecutor is to are seeking for justice inside the bounds of the law, not merely to convict.” The prosecutor serves the general public interest and, as a “zealous advises,” “must workout sound discretion and independent judgment.” While discretion isn’t unbridled, the fact is that a prosecutor enjoys vast independence. Gershman §four.1.
