Ethical behavior amongst prosecutors could use some major improvement. According to Peak (2012), contrary, perhaps, to what is popularly believed, it was decided over a half a century ago that the primary duty of a prosecutor is “not that he shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” The history of misconduct by prosecutors can be dated as far back as the late 1800’s.
A more recent example of misconduct by a Federal prosecutor is a case in 2003 in Virginia where a jury convicted Jay Lentz of kidnapping and murdering his wife. Later post-conviction the judge set aside the conviction of kidnapping due to insufficient evidence to support the charge. A new trial was order a few weeks later for the murder charge. A new trial was granted
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The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility should crack down on prosecutors where blatant misconduct occurs. These actions seriously undermine the defendant’s rights according to Cassel (2004). She further states that “They also shake public confidence in our criminal justice system and they mire that system in costly retrials that never would have had to take place if prosecutors had shown the jury the evidence it was meant to see and only that evidence in the first …show more content…
One action is the enhancement of local and state policies regarding ethical behavior and unprofessional misconduct. Policies that are a standard or both state and local employees who work in the criminal justice system. Successful partnerships between state, local and federal government should be established to combat the most important issues that plagues the criminal justice system. These partnerships will bridge organizations and yield great results in reducing misconduct and improve ethical behavior.
A second action is training on ethics which should consist of examples of past incidents misconduct should be incorporated with annual training to follow in order to lay a foundation. Leading by example is another way for administration to address misconduct. Making ethical based decision as administrators gives others a path to follow. Finally, by reinforcing the consequences of misconduct or unethical practices will reduce the occurrences of continued unprofessional behavior.
In this case study there are a few unethical behaviors that had occurred. One unethical decision was to commit the act of conspiracy. Bell, Forrest and Sillings teamed together to steal from an active crime investigation. The second unethical decision was when these individuals stole sums of cash and personal property from the victim while executing search warrants. The three individuals committed two primary crimes: conspiracy and theft. These officers were who took the oath to protect and serve the community were doing the opposite. Bell, Forrest and Silllings belonged
For the purpose of this paper, the Houston Police Department’s organizational structure will be used to illustrate the chain of command. The jail operations are designated to Strategic Operations as you can see from the diagram below, and it is overseen by the executive assistant chief, assistant chief and captain. The captain over jail operations is responsible for all three shifts at the city jail, and he assigns three lieutenants to supervise each shift (days, evenings, and nights). Within Houston’s jail facility, there are both classified officers and civilians performing various assignments and tasks. The immediate concern that was brought to attention pertains to a sexual misconduct allegation from a female inmate against a correctional
Cheeseman, K., San Miguel, C., Frantzen, D., & Nored, L. (2011). Everyday Ethics for the Criminal Justice Professional. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Each position in criminal justice holds power and responsibility, and therefore, it is very important that people in those positions do not abuse it. Unethical behavior in the criminal justice system takes away trust and respect from authority, and as a consequence, the law is more easily disregarded if the people lack faith in the system. It can, also, contribute to crime and/or cause citizens to not report crimes. Society should have indubitable confidence in the men and women of the criminal justice system. Law enforcement officers violating even the smallest rule could lead to more serious infractions.
Prosecutorial misconduct is when a prosecutor wrongfully convicts a defendant based on information he or she may keep concealed from a judge and/or jury. Ask the average citizen, and they are totally unaware that such a thing ever happens. The public is often persuaded to believe that all prosecutors are honorable people who are committed to ethics, justice, and upholding the law. But prosecutorial misconduct and misdeeds happen, and they occur more frequently than anyone would imagine. Judge Konzinski, stated to the Washington Post, “Prosecutorial misconduct is a particularly difficult problem to deal with because so much of what prosecutors do is secret. If a prosecutor fails to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, who is to know? Or if a prosecutor delays disclosure of evidence helpful to the defense until the defendant has accepted an unfavorable plea bargain, no one will be the wiser.” No wonder society is naive to the prosecutorial misconduct that transpire
Reaching epidemic proportions and spreading like a disease, prosecutorial misconduct has cut across geographic and socio-economic areas with the effect of infecting the criminal justice system (Lawless, 2008). Prosecutorial misconduct takes place when a prosecutor breaks the law or code of professional ethics during the prosecution stage. Legal and ethical violations can weaken the conformity to the law and rules that are to be followed within the criminal justice system (Cromwell, P. F., Dunham, R. G., & Palacios, W. R., 1997). In this paper, existing research focused on factors related to prosecutorial misconduct will be presented. This paper will also examine potential remedies that exist to confront prosecutorial misconduct.
Any of these reforms, if they had been done during Hayes’s and Matthews’s cases, could have prevented their wrongful convictions concerning the murder. Between interrogation reform and eyewitness reform, any change in the direction of validating what actually occurred or making sure information was presented in an unbiased manner would have shown great differences in what happened to these two men. These two individuals, wrongly convicted due to two of the six main faults in the process, are now part of 16 exonerated cases from the Innocence project that involved two people accused of a single crime.
Criminal investigations are a very serious matter that take a large amount of time to solve. The Criminal Justice System plays a huge part on cracking down criminal cases. “The Criminal Justice System is a set of
Police ethics are extremely important because ethics are the typical of “fair and honest conduct” (pg 460). People may have a different definition of what is fair and what is honest, and there are different circumstances where officers may not be able to be honest; such as covert investigations. Society in general determines what our ethical standards and moral principles are. Individual morals vary among all of us as they are what we as an individual consider to be right or wrong. We also have morals that are set by society. These are what we as a society consider to be right or wrong and may go hand in hand with individual morals. Morals change as society and people change, therefore we as a country have to adapt to what the changing morals are.
In the year 2014, law enforcement in the U.S. estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes reported (“D2014VC”). Imagine all the people needed just to get to the bottom of these cases! There is an abundant amount of Americans solving mysteries every day to keep others safe. There are crimes being committed all around the U.S. at every second of the day. In John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, he displays a firm relation between investigators and lawyers through the Criminal Justice System of acquiring suspects and evidence, indicated in the book with an exploration of the scandals of Supreme Court Justices Rosenberg and Jensen (Grisham).
Within our police system in America, there are gaps and loopholes that give leeway to police officials who either abuse the authority given to them or do not represent the ethical standards that they are expected to live up to by society. Because of the nature of police work, there is a potential for deterioration of these ethical and moral standards through deviance, misconduct, corruption, and favoritism. Although these standards are set in place, many police officers are not held accountable for their actions and can easily get by with the mistreatment of others because of their career title. While not every police abuses his or her power, the increasingly large percentage that do present a problem that must be recognized by the public as well as those in charge of police departments throughout our country. Police officials are abusing their power and authority through three types of misconduct known as malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance and these types are being overlooked by management personnel who rarely intervene even though they know what is happening. Misconduct is wrong because it violates rights and causes people to be wrongly accused of crimes or be found not guilty and set free when they are still an endangerment to other people. The public needs to be educated on what is happening in the police system in hopes that someone will speak out to protect citizens from being violated by police officers.
Time may pass and personal morals may change, but one of the strengths of the United States of America is its unwavering dedication to justice. Throughout time, this country’s methods and laws have grown and adapted, but the basis of the law enforcement’s work has remained the same: the safety and interest of the people.
It is often said that power brings corruption, but in reality it is an individual’s lack of character, self-discipline, and integrity that leads to corruption. Law enforcement can bring many temptations on the job, and maintaining an up most level of personal integrity can often times be very difficult. The very nature of the job surrounds officers with all of the bad things that society, produces. There can be an endless amount of training and rules put into place to try and deter officers from committing unethical acts, but in the end it really just comes down to the specific individual and their willingness to do the right thing.
While training in ethics is important to reduce department liability and aid officers in making decisions, this is not the only way to promote ethical decision making on the part of officers. Ethics training should be combined with a rigorous employment screening process that attempts to bring the best possible candidates into the profession. Utilization of both of these tools together increases the likelihood of good law enforcement candidates, and continues the movement towards
Criminal Justice professionals are in positions of power and exercise power and authority over others. Therefore, it is important for them to study ethics because they must be aware of the ethical standards needed in making critical decisions involving discretion, force, and due process. It is also a fact that criminal justice professionals who exercise power and authority over others can be tempted to abuse their powers.