Prosecutors who resist DNA post-conviction DNA testing are agents of injustice.
Back when I worked in the Criminal Division at DoJ, that motto reflected the operating ethos of the place.
Some state prosecutors apparently didn’t get the memo. Insisting on keeping innocent people in prison, at the sacrifice of any chance to find the guilty people, merely to save personal and organizational face? These people are a disgrace to their profession.
Update The original version, from Solicitor General Frederick Lehmann (Taft Administration), is “The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts.” According to Seth Waxman, the motto is inscribed on the wall of the Attorney General’s rotunda in the DoJ building.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman