There was a disturbing front-page story in today's edition of USA Today about prosecutorial misconduct. An investigation found a staggering litany of prosecutorial misconduct by U.S. Attorneys. The paper found 201 cases where prosecutors engaged in behavior so egregious that judges either rebuked prosecutors, tossed out charges or threw cases out altogether.
One of the ghastliest cases involves Anthony Washington, a longtime drug trafficker in New Haven. He's spent the better part of two decades either in juvenile hall or in prison. Back in 2001, he was charged with having a gun despite his long felony record. However, it turned out that Washington's accuser had been convicted for filing a false police report--and prosecutors never told the defense. Washington has been in and out of prison since, culminating in a 2008 conviction for supplying PCP to New Haven's drug dealers. To my mind, this looks like a textbook case of a guy who was manifestly guilty, only to have his conviction thrown out because the prosecutor shredded the Constitution.
The database of cases is viewable here. Some of them make for horrifying reading. They show numerous instances where prosecutors either withheld evidence, flat-out lied to the court, or other instances of misconduct.
The most frightening case so far is U.S. v Aisenberg. Federal prosecutors in Tampa charged a Florida couple with lying to authorities about the disappearance of their infant daughter. This was even after state investigators found no evidence the Aisenbergs were in any way involved. Prosecutors also lied in order to obtain warrants for wiretaps on the Aisenbergs' home, and many of the supposedly incriminating statements they made were nowhere to be found. Most seriously, a statement in which the mother all but said the father killed the baby was nowhere on tape. The case was thrown out, and the Aisenbergs were ultimately awarded $1.5 million in attorneys' fees under the Hyde Amendment. No, not that Hyde Amendment--but a law that says that if a federal court finds prosecutors engaged in vexatious, frivolous or bad-faith behavior, the court can make the offending office pay the defendant's legal expenses.
Looks like the "win at all costs" mentality dates back to well before the Bush administration, if this story is at all accurate.