Prosecutorial Misconduct

On the evening of January 29, 2018, Caryn Santa knew she only had a few hours to save her son, Robert Collazo. Collazo, 21, had been held on Rikers Island for almost three years, charged with the murder of Jose Velasquez.

He’s a death-penalty championing, Islam-bashing vaccine skeptic who believes the U.S. is “rooted in Christian principles.” And he’s currently campaigning for re-election in Texas as the district attorney of Bexar County, a populous county of nearly two million residents, close to 60 percent of whom are Hispanic — as a Democrat.

In the early spring of 2013, Yolanda and Jessie Smith, an African American couple, agreed to accept what they believed were packages of cancer medicine for a 58-year-old white man named Alvin Phillips, whom they knew from a pool hall in Waggaman, Louisiana, a tiny town comprised of about 10,000 residents near New Orleans.

A New York State grand jury indicted Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove on charges of official misconduct and perjury on Friday afternoon. The indictment stems from Abelove’s concealment of evidence about the shooting of an unarmed black man by a Troy police officer, and allegations that Abelove lied during a subsequent investigation.

Under District Attorney Steve Wolfson, prosecutors in Las Vegas have led the nation in new death sentences, repeatedly engaged in racist jury selection, and maintained a secret bank account to pay witnesses for their testimony in criminal cases.

A pattern of scandals, misconduct, and federal reversals seem to plague the state’s district attorneys.

It was July of 2004 in Oklahoma City, and Brenda Andrew was on trial for killing her husband. The prosecutor had been speaking for two and a half hours, and he was wrapping up the closing argument by reading from Rob Andrew’s diary about his wife’s infidelity: “The first time was when I drove to her school in Kansas to surprise her and I found out she had spent the night in her old boyfriend’s dorm room. Second time was during the summer when she was teaching at summer camp she met a new boyfriend and then kept dating him on the side while we were engaged.”

The American Civil Rights Movement had many aims, but one of the central goals of peaceful, non-violent marches and demonstrations was to expose those who opposed equality and freedom for what they truly were — hateful, mean-spirited bigots. The strategy of non-violence in the face of racist taunts, death threats, police dogs, water hoses, and even violent physical confrontations was rooted in ancient theologies and philosophies, but its practical, immediate goal was to help show the world that the fight for equality had sides — good and evil, right and wrong.