If [a prosecutor] believes a crime was committed and they believe they're sending a valuable message to the community about the value of a poor black man's life or what is appropriate responsibility for a police officer, there are benefits of this trial that can't be measured in convictions and acquittals.
I would have thought it requires more than mere "belief" by a prosecutor that a crime has been committed before criminal charges should be brought. And I'm pretty sure that it's improper to bring down the hammer of the state on individuals just to send "a valuable message to the community" (even assuming there's value to the community in bringing weak criminal charges against those who are there to protect...it).
I guess my only remaining question is whether Professor Jaros, when a defense attorney, voiced a similarly generous view of the prosecutor's role as Public Scold.In any event, surely Mosby and her team have sent delivered the message they wanted to send in the Freddy Gray matter. Future trials would be not only unjust, but arguably counter-productive in terms of sending any legitimate message....
In Baltimore, the murder rate [has] surged -- 63 percent last year. It seems clear that this sharp spike is due in significant part to the way Marilyn Mosby and then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake treated the police after Gray's death -- a death as to which an African-American judge has repeatedly found no criminal responsibility attaches.
Mosby sent a message, all right. Baltimore's residents, especially its black residents, are now suffering the consequences.
If [AG Lynch] believes a crime was committed and she believes she's sending a valuable message to the community about the value of unpurjured Congressional testimony or what is appropriate handling of classified documents for a Secretary of State, there are benefits of this trial that can't be measured in convictions and acquittals.
Ouch!
On the other hand, one might wonder whether Ms. Lynch actually thinks there's a lot of value to telling the truth to Congress, or safeguarding classified documents.
I mean, if the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians get their hands on a few intelligence secrets here and there, hey, look, come on, let's not blow this out of proportion.
“This criminal case is about lying — lying to the FBI, lying to the SEC, lying
to investors,” insisted the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY as he announced the charges against Stewart. “Martha Stewart is being
prosecuted not for who she is, but because of what she did.”
The official who made that announcement was a rising federal prosecutor named James Comey, who rather famously applied a different standard in a more
recent case involving a celebrity suspected of lying to the FBI.
-- personalliberty.com/big-jail-amanda-marshall-hillarys-oregon-avatar/
Comey charged Stewart for lying and she served 5 months.
“if it was Jane Doe she would have been prosecuted,” he told the Virginia
Informer, of the College of William and Mary. “[T]here were 2,000 cases
by the Justice Department that year for providing false statements
during an investigation. I thought of my hesitation about the case
due to someone being rich and famous, and how it shouldn’t be
that way. I decided we had to do it.”
--heavy.com/news/2016/07/
The prosecution of the bike cop was absolutely disgusting, and any lawyer involved with it ought to be disbarred. What you're seeing with this Jaros character (and the WaPo reporters) is an attempt to pretty up this raw exercise of power untethered to law.
Notwithstanding the lawlessness of this prosecution, the cops involved have no recourse if the Maryland bar doesn't pull tickets. That seems to me an unacceptable state of affairs. Government actors who act in such a manner should face consequences.
Mosby (and the other prosecutors) are a stain on our profession, and it is embarrassing that a law professor would defend this sort of thing.