Bill Makes Prosecutorial Misconduct A Felony

A new bill introduced in the California state legislature would now make it a felony for prosecutors to withhold of falsify evidence. The bill was a response to the egregious prosecutorial misconduct that was endemic in the Orange County District Attorney’s office and the common use of jailhouse informants. The extent of the misconduct could lead to the unraveling of hundreds of cases in the county. This current bill has the same problem that bedevils many existing securities laws and that is that clear intent must be shown in order to get a conviction. As we’ve seen, if the paper trail is just vague enough, it is almost impossible to win a conviction. The other driving force for this bill is that prosecutorial misconduct is rarely reported by judges and even more rarely disciplined by the state bar. It is pretty sad that it had come to this, where prosecutors actually have to have the threat of a felony conviction hanging over them in order to do the right thing. But the revelations of rampant misconduct around the country as well as the failure of any effective discipline against those prosecutors may make a bill like this inevitable not only in California but across the country as well.