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66 Fordham L. Rev. 2117 (1997-1998)
Our Administrative System of Criminal Justice

handle is hein.journals/flr66 and id is 2135 raw text is: ARTICLES OUR ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE Gerard E. Lynch* IN HONOR OF WILLIAM M. TENDY Bill Tendy was already a legend among federal prosecutors when I first served as an Assistant United States Attorney for tire Southern District of New York in the early 1980s. To us youngsters, Bill even then seemed a survivor from another era, when prosecutors really did resemble the tough-talking Hollywood DAs played by actors like Brian Donleav-while we felt more like insecure young lawyers who should be played by Michael J. Fox or Cal. ista Flockhart. Partly, of course, this was just a finction of age and experience; hari as it was to imagine, there nust have been a time when Bill too wias young and new to tie job-though probably not insecure. Partly, though, it was a function of tie fact that Bill's experience did indeed read back to an era, before the inno- vations of the Warren Court, when law enforcement had a different, and some- what rougher, style, and prosecutors were unanbiguouslY associated with that style. In the fall, tie Fordham University School of Law will hold a syntposium tn honor of Bill Tendy, called Tie Changing Role of the Federal Prosecutor. Tire following essay suggests that this symposium is timely indeed, and that prosecutors today should be conceived as occupying a very different role from tie one they played when Bill began in tie business. Although the develop- ments I discuss are not limited to federal prosecutions, tire*' are most pro- nounced in the federal systen, particularly in white-collar cases in districts containing major cities. I do not know that Bill approved of all tie changes in the criminal justice system that he witnessed in tie course of his long career, but I do know that he iuderstood tire process of change, and tire need of tire system, and of those who work within it, to adapt to tie inevitable evolition of the legal order in response to social and political diange. D AWYERS in the common law tradition like to emphasize the dif- ferences between the Anglo-American adversarial system of criminal justice and the continental or civilian inquisitorial system. The conventional wisdom among U.S. lawyers tends to glorify the American system, which is claimed to be more protective of liberty, more democratic, and less dominated by agents of the government establishment than the civil law tradition, thanks to the role of the lay jury, the formal equality between the representatives of the govern- ment and of the defendant, and the neutral independence of the judiciary. Increasingly, however, academic experts-and occasional public commentators influenced by them-tend to make the same sharp comparisons with a reverse twist, praising the inquisitorial sys- tem as more rational, more effective, and even more careful to avoid conviction of the innocent, thanks to the dominance of professional judges with a mandate for finding the truth, the reduced importance * Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law, Columbia University School of Law. 2117

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