User:Advanced Legal Research Student/Prosecutorial misconduct

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In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct or prosecutorial overreach is "an illegal act or failing to act, on the part of a prosecutor, especially an attempt to sway the jury to wrongly convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropriate punishment." Prosecutors are bound by a set of rules which outline fair and dispassionate conduct both before and during trial. Prosecutors are expected to act as a neutral party committed to upholding justice.

A prosecutor may engage in misconduct in a number of ways. In criminal law systems where prosecutors have the authority to bring charges to a suspect at the prosecutor's discretion, the prosecutor may impose charges arbitrarily or excessively.

Causes of misconduct
There are internal and external causes of prosecutorial misconduct. Internal factors include ignoring exculpatory evidence, falsifying evidence, or prioritizing winning cases to receive an increase in salary. External factors include capitulating under pressure from the public or the police to convict a suspect even if evidence of guilt is lacking. Moreover, prosecutors who perform their duties under an adversarial system may feel compelled to defeat the defense attorney to achieve a conviction.

Cognitive biases may also contribute to misconduct. In an article, Alafair Burke describes biases that negatively affect prosecutors' decision-making: confirmation bias, selective information processing, belief perseverance, and cognitive dissonance. Prosecutors are susceptible to seeking, remembering, and recalling information in favor of a suspect's guilt while dismissing or forgetting exculpatory evidence.

Prosecutorial Immunity
In United States jurisprudence, prosecutorial immunity shields prosecutors from liability during the course of their duties. The exceptions to immunity are limited to severe instances of incompetence or intentional violations of the law. In 1991, Chief Justice White of the Supreme Court elaborated on prosecutorial immunity in his majority opinion in Burns v. Reed. Prosecutors face no liability because the threat of litigation could deter prosecutors from charging suspects and fulfilling their other duties.

Global Perspectives
Ronald F. Wright and Marc L. Miller posit that worldwide, countries struggle in their efforts to regulate the conduct of prosecutors. In countries that primarily regulate prosecutors via a civil code system, various legally binding guidelines restrict or eliminate prosecutorial discretion; however, large caseloads exert pressure on courts to grant prosecutors the discretion to determine who to prosecute, and such decisions are hidden from public scrutiny.

Curtis Flowers
In 1996, Mississippi, the police arrested Curtis Flowers for the suspected murder of four individuals. Prosecutor Doug Evans put Flowers on trial a total of six times. During the first three trials, Evans used peremptory challenges to racially discriminate against prospective jurors during the jury selection process and misrepresented evidence in court. Evans likewise racially discriminated against prospective jurors during the sixth trial; during jury questioning, Evans asked one question to each white prospective juror and asked twenty-nine questions to each black prospective juror. During 2019, Justice Kavanaugh, in his majority opinion for Flowers v. Mississippi, noted that over the course of the six trials Evans dismissed forty-one out of forty-two prospective black jurors. Evans's racial discrimination violated the holding of a previous Supreme Court case, Batson v. Kentucky, which ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibits prosecutors from using peremptory challenges solely on the basis of race. The court in Flowers v. Mississippi reversed Flowers's conviction.

Senior Prosecutor Jack McMahon
In 1987, Pennsylvania prosecutor Jack McMahon instructed recently employed prosecutors to use peremptory challenges to dismiss black prospective jurors. McMahon recommended dismissing low-income blacks and black women to maximize the chances of achieving a conviction at trial.

Then in 1988, McMahon convicted Robert Cook of first-degree murder and the jury sentenced him to death. In his appeal, Cook questioned McMahon's motive for his peremptory challenges, arguing that McMahon employed racial and sexual stereotypes. Cook further argued that McMahon's conduct violated the holding in Batson v. Kentucky. Although McMahon stated he dismissed prospective black jurors for race neutral reasons, such as employment status, he did not dismiss prospective white jurors who had the same employment status as the black individuals McMahon dismissed. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that McMahon's reasoning for dismissing the prospective black jurors was race neutral.