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2006 Wis. L. Rev. 399 (2006)
Relationship between Prosecutorial Misconduct and Wrongful Convictions: Shaping Remedies for a Broken System

handle is hein.journals/wlr2006 and id is 411 raw text is: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT AND WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: SHAPING REMEDIES FOR A BROKEN SYSTEM PETER A. Joy* With impunity, prosecutors across the country have violated their oaths and the law, committing the worst kinds of deception in the most serious of cases. They have prosecuted black men, hiding evidence the real killers were white. They have prosecuted a wife, hiding evidence her husband committed suicide. They have prosecuted parents, hiding evidence their daughter was killed by wild dogs. They do it to win. They do it because they won't get punished. They have done it to defendants who came within hours of being executed, only to be exonerated.1 INTRODUCTION Citing malfeasance on the part of some prosecutors across the country, two journalists researched thousands of court files and documented hundreds of homicide cases that were reversed because of prosecutors' misconduct that denied the accused fair trials.2 Since that expos6, the growing number of exonerated persons who were * Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic, Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. 1. Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial & Error; How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win; The Verdict: Dishonor, CHI. TRiB., Jan. 10, 1999, § 1, at 1. 2. Chicago Tribune reporters Ken Armstrong and Maurice Possley produced a five-part series reporting on their national study of approximately eleven-thousand court rulings over thirty-six years in which they found 381 defendants who had their homicide convictions reversed due to prosecutorial misconduct. See id.; Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial & Error; How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win; Break Rules, Be Promoted, CHI. TRIB., Jan. 14, 1999, § 1, at 1; Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial & Error; How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win, Prosecution on Trial in DuPage, CHI. TRm., Jan. 12, 1999, § 1, at 1; Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial & Error; How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win; Reversal of Fortune, CHI. TRIB., Jan. 13, 1999, § 1, at 1; Ken Armstrong & Maurice Possley, Trial & Error, How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win; The Flip Side of a Fair Trial, CHI. TRB., Jan. 11, 1999, § 1, at 1.

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