Potent new report about prosecutorial misconduct in California”

Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this article from the National Law Journal headlined “Prosecutorial Misconduct Is Rarely Punished, Says New Study.”

The report, issued by the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law, found 707 cases between 1997 and 2009 in which courts explicitly determined that prosecutors had committed misconduct. It examined more than 4,000 cases.

Among the 707 cases, only six prosecutors — 0.8% — were disciplined by the State Bar of California. Only 10 of the 4,741 disciplinary actions by the state bar during the same period involved prosecutors….

The report is available here.

October 5, 2010 | Permalink