Prosecutor

Who is she accountable to?

An 85-page report filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court by retired Circuit Judge Dennis Flynn found that former Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Zapf committed multiple instances of professional misconduct — and that Zapf deserves to be suspended from practicing law and prohibited from ever again being a prosecutor. The violations go back to to Zapf’s conduct when he […]

In the last month, the Baltimore Police Department has been rocked by accusations that officers are staging or “reenacting” the discovery of drugs for the benefit of capturing, after the fact, the seizure of evidence on their body cameras. In response, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has decided to drop the charges in those cases — and possibly hundreds of […]

At the ballot box in Ontario County, New York this week, Republican voters chose candidate Jim Ritts as the primary candidate for district attorney. Ritts won with 55 percent of the vote, beating Kristina “Kitty” Karle, a former assistant prosecutor in neighboring Monroe county. Karle’s loss comes after an appellate court criticized her for prosecutorial misconduct in […]

Jamal Segars and his friend Brian Minner were shot near the Detroit airport in 2004. Thelonious “Shaun” Searcy became the prime suspect, and investigator theorized he had meant to kill someone else and shot Segars and Minner by mistake. Officers from the scene were unable to identify Searcy, but four other random eye-witnesses did. Searcy presented eight […]

Supervised injection sites — places where IV drugs users can avoid contracting disease and deathly overdoes — have been cited approvingly by public health experts as one of the most effective ways to control the opioid epidemic. They have been popular in Canada. But, public officials in the U.S. have shied away from them. The tide may be starting […]

Following a handful of local cases that raised concerns about prosecutorial overreach, the Utah County Commission has decided to create a committee that will look into prosecutorial misconduct. “I don’t want to limit what prosecutors should be doing,” Commission Chairman Bill Lee said. “But it’s important to me that the public also has trust in our legal […]

Police say the tool is outdated.

The murder convictions of two Kentucky men have been thrown out after new evidence was discovered in their cases. Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey DeWayne Clark will get new trials after a judge found there was no credible evidence that the killing of Rhonda Sue Warford was related to satanic worship. The Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the ruling. The […]

The death penalty is costing the cash-strapped state of Louisiana tens of millions of dollars a year. But there’s one state employee who’s massively profiting off its continued existence. Hugo Holland’s fingerprints are on the bulk of Louisiana’s recent death sentences. He’s been hired by over a dozen district attorneys to prosecute death penalty cases at a rate that […]

“I was your worst nightmare.”

There are approximately 22,000 intravenous drug users in the city.

A Pennsylvania district attorney has promised to do a better job of vetting potential staff after his office hired a clerk who is active in the alt-right movement. David Freed, the district attorney in Cumberland County said he didn’t personally know Evan McLaren when he worked in the office as an unpaid clerk in 2016 and 2017. […]

Vote in a Brooklyn District Attorney that Represents Your Values for the Future of Criminal Justice.

A district attorney wants to solve crime by breaking up families.

Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick says the criminal justice system failed in the prosecution of Greg Kelley. Kelley was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the sexual assault of a 4-year-old child in 2014. But the conviction was thrown into doubt when Kelley’s defense team found that another man, who used to be […]

The price of shoplifting at Wal-Mart isn’t always low.

The State Bar of California has given a public reproval to a San Mateo prosecutor after ruling that she made false statements about a potential witness in a criminal case. Under a settlement agreement, Deputy District Attorney Melissa McKowan stipulated to one count of violating the business and professions code while she was prosecuting the child molestation […]

In Bedford-Stuyvesant’s historic Mount Pisgah Baptist Church on Tuesday night, candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in the race for Brooklyn’s next district attorney gathered to compare their progressive track records and reform-driven plans. The forum, hosted by Faith Over Fear, a “faith and justice coalition,” focused heavily on police accountability, the protection of immigrants, […]

Candidates sparred last month at a political forum hosted by VOCAL-NY in the race to become Brooklyn’s next District Attorney. The debate allowed community members to question candidates on myriad criminal justice issues, from wrongful convictions to protecting immigrants from deportation. According to recent polling, Eric Gonzalez, acting-District Attorney since Ken Thompson’s death in October 2016, leads the […]

In 1996, a 12-year-old girl named Christina Brown was found dead in a Detroit apartment. She had been beaten to death with a toilet tank lid; she’d also been stabbed. Lamarr Monson — who had been living with and dealing drugs with Brown thinking she was older — came home and found her dead. He called for the neighbors to […]

Of all the death row stories, perhaps none is quite as heart wrenching as that of Terry Williams, who was sentenced to death in Philadelphia three decades ago. This week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided that Williams should finally get another penalty-phase trial, which means that Williams has a chance to explain why he deserves […]

The officers’ credibility is under fire.

The state of Oregon has made drug possession a misdemeanor over the objections of multiple district attorneys in the state. The new law went into effect as soon as Governor Kate Brown signed it earlier this month. It makes most instances of first-time simple possession of illegal drugs — including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines — a misdemeanor rather than a felony. The […]

At two recent public forums, candidates to become Contra Costa’s interim District Attorney focused mostly on the degree to which their views and proposed policies aligned with Contra Costa County’s solidly progressive constituents’. But the selection process took an unexpected turn on Friday when local news outlets reported that two finalists — Superior Court Judge Diana Becton and Assistant […]

After 10 years under the reign of Mark Peterson, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office will finally get a much-needed facelift. In September, the county’s Board of Supervisors will have a chance to pick an interim district attorney who might better represent the interests of the California’s seventh largest county. It might seem an […]

A prosecutor who worked for Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry will not face discipline despite findings of prosecutorial misconduct in two separate criminal cases. Former Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Gillian DePrez Keiffner was the lead prosecutor in two criminal cases where the Indiana Court of Appeals found that Keiffner committed misconduct. In Brandon Brummet’s case, the appellate court […]

District attorneys want to keep an outdated system alive.

Tens of thousands of people are dying every year. The President recently declared it a national emergency. Yet most politicians in the U.S. are still shying away from an empirically proven way to save lives claimed by the ever-growing opioid epidemic: supervised injection facilities. Sixty-six cities across the world have opened these facilities, which permit intravenous […]

UPDATED Aug. 22, 2017, 3:00 p.m. On Tuesday afternoon just hours before Marcellus Williams was scheduled to be executed in Missouri, Governor Eric Greitens issued a stay pending an investigation into new DNA evidence presented by Williams’ attorneys. Greitens announced that he would appoint a board of inquiry to review Williams’ case and issue a report. “A […]

While prosecutorial misconduct generally slides under the radar, every once in a while, there’s a prosecutor whose acts are so egregious that they inspire bar complaints. So it is with Stacy Parks Miller, the chief prosecutor for Centre County, Pennsylvania, whom I previously covered for Slate in May, just before she lost her reelection bid. If you’ve heard of Parks […]

Last Wednesday, County District Attorney Kristen Barnebey of Aransas County, Texas announced that her office will not accept cases presented by a local police department until its officers are better educated and trained. A press release issued by her office on Tuesday states that the Rockport Police Department has withheld evidence in violation of the law — […]

A California judge has taken the death penalty off the table for Scott Dekraai after finding that the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department engaged in “chronic” corruption. On Friday, Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Goethals said Dekraai could not face the death penalty due to the repeated misconduct by both D.A. Tony Rackauckas’s office and […]

On August 15, Victor Alonzo King of Raleigh, North Carolina was arrested and accused of child abuse. His offense? Allegedly leaving his five children under the age of eight unattended while he went to work. King’s employer says he left the children with a neighbor, who then left them alone, according to ABC 13. In court on […]

A federal appellate court has ruled that the office of Maricopa County District Attorney Bill Montgomery violated the law with their wiretapping practices. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that Montgomery didn’t personally review and sign off on surveillance warrants, which is required by federal law. Montgomery instead relied on a less […]

71-year-old Henry Montgomery has been in prison for over 50 years for his role in the shooting death of East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy Charles Hurt. But he now has a chance to see the free world. The petitioner in the U.S. Supreme Court case Montgomery v. Louisiana, which gave hope to thousands of people who thought they […]

The family of an Aaron Bailey, an unarmed black man killed by police in Indianapolis, are asking for a special prosecutor to investigate the case. Family members argue that Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry has a conflict of interest and cannot fairly assess the culpability of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officers Michal P. Dinnsen and Carlton […]

Earlier this month, District Attorney Ricky Babin was elected president of the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association. He’ll take on this new role at a critical time for criminal justice reform. But Babin’s history and past statements suggest he will not be a voice for change, and will instead defend the status quo that has made […]

Two elected district attorneys in North Carolina have been arrested and one has pleaded guilty for a scheme that authorities said involved both men hiring the other’s wife for bogus jobs. Craig Blitzer and Wallace Bradsher were both accused of taking about $100,000 in state money from the North Carolina payroll program for jobs that didn’t really […]

In a highly unusual move, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office recently became embroiled in a fight to keep a new mother from being locked up. Karen Padilla Garcia, 26, went into labor after she was detained in the Cook County Jail following a probation violation last month. Garcia was taken to Stroger Hospital where […]