We regularly complain about the fact that the legal system is unable — or at least unwilling — to police attorneys who violate the rules. But this failure is not limited to the plaintiff’s bar in civil cases. Lawrence Floyd was a prosecutor in Cuyahoga County who, according to the judge, “deliberately committed prosecutorial misconduct” by making unconstitutional remarks at a murder trial, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.
His punishment? A $26,000 fine — the amount that a new trial will cost taxpayers. Sounds reasonable, right? Not quite: the judge declined to fine Floyd; instead, she fined taxpayers that amount of money. That’ll show him.
(via Crime & Federalism)
16 Comments
So one part of the government fines another part – really useful.
I guess the intent is that his bosses will care more about losing $26,000 from their budget than they care about prosecutors who deliberately throw trials they’re losing …
“Russo acknowledged Floyd had deliberately committed prosecutorial misconduct, but said there was no proof that he threw the trial on purpose in “that apocalyptic moment.”
Shouldn’t this be a bar complaint?
so let me get this straight…
The person who violated the ethics and rules of the court doesn’t pay a penny, probably not sanctioned by the courts, and odds are, won’t have a complaint filed to the bar regarding this incident.
The D.A.’s office will have to fork over $26K for a new trial, but will probably write it off with an addendum to their budget for next year.
The taxpayers will most likely face higher taxes to fix the malfeasance.
Yup, seems like the status quo has remained. This actually reminds me of a conversation I had with a rather disgruntled D.A. from Philadelphia who was complaining about people in information security. Her statement was that she didn’t like people in that profession because “they felt that they had too much power.” My retort was that most of them were highly ethical, followed the evidence, scrutinized by their peers or superiors to ensure the validity of their findings, knowledgeable about their domain, and rarely attempted to claim expertise outside of it… show me one lawyer who can meet half of these.
Oddly, she immediately changed the subject đŸ˜‰
I’m not sure I see what the problem is here in this situation. He’s an employee of the county, so why should he be held personally accountable for something he did on the job? The taxpayers would have “paid” for the new trial anyway, so this isn’t some additional loss for the people of this community, it’s just shifting the bill to the prosecutor’s office. I think the idea is to get his office to re-assess his value and employment there.
David Nesting: he should be held personally accountable because it’s something he personally did. This isn’t a question of having a car accident while on company business; it’s a penalty.
The taxpayers wouldn’t have paid for the new trial “anyway,” because there wouldn’t have needed to BE a new trial, but for his actions. It may indeed be a way to induce the DA’s office to fire him, but that seems like a rather indirect punishment, and not much comfort to taxpayers. Why not sanction him personally, which would provide more of a deterrence and compensate taxpayers?
Only a lawyer (i.e. the judge) would think this addressed the problem. She could have awarded the defendent costs to cover additional legal fees for the extra trial … if it wasn’t a public defender, which would have had the same effect.
Actually, if he intentionally threw the trial, then the defendant should be considered to have been found not guilty.
The mistrial has also cost the defendant additional time in jail, assuming, as is likely in a homicide case, that he is not on bail. If he is convicted, he will presumably receive credit for time served, but if he is acquitted, the prosecutor’s action will have cost him additional time in jail. I think that the miscreant prosecutor should compensate him for this. Can the court order the prosecutor to pay the defendant? Does the defendant have a good cause of action against the prosecutor? I would hope that prosecutorial immunity would not cover such obvious misconduct.
Bill, your statements are right in principle, but I wouldn’t feel too sorry for this particular defendant. The Plain-Dealer also reports:
David Nieporent,
While it appeasr that sympathy for the defendant in this case indeed appeears to be unwarranted, ANTIPATHY for the prosecutor IS warranted.
The tools we allow the goverenment to use will be ABused – the victim of that that abuse in this case being deserving of such abuse does not mean that the abuse itself is OK or should be tolerated, as the next victim likely will not be.
It’s the same principle as the powers given to the President… people may like a particular President (most seem to like either the current or previous one), but the NEXT President will have the same powers, so we should still restrain the President’s powers, even when we like the current one (whenever that might occur).
ANTIPATHY for the prosecutor IS warranted.
Yes. I believe that my similar opinion on that is pretty clearly implied by the very fact of my post.
It’s also worth noting that the prosecutor who did this will also not face any action from the State Bar. There is a reason Mike Nifong was so bold in his prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors have been getting away with so much for so long that no one knew there were even limits to what a prosecutor could get away with.
David Nieporent,
If the defendant is guilty of this offense or the other one of which he is accused, he will presumably end up in jail for a very long time and will not be damaged by the mistrial. He will only be harmed, and therefore deserve compensation, if he is innocent. So I don’t think that the danger of compensating a scumbag is great.
It’s not just prosecutors. Not a single attorney has faced any disciplinary consequences over the silicosis fraud.
to say that lawyers are brazen is somewhat redundant. But the malfeasance that prosecutors sometimes perform is just mind boggling. A few years back we had one who went after one of our guys for pretty much no reason (oddly enough, the employee was working on a project which the prosecutor was involved with, and apparently one developed a deep antipathy towards the other… three guesses which), when the usual harassment abated, the lawyer next went out of his way to draw up charges and also remove this person’s ability to work in our particular industry though use of some really devious tactics.
To their credit, when all was learned, not only did the govt. step up and quash the actions taken against the employee in question, but also permitted the employee to directly charge the prosecutor based on his behavior. Case was filed, won, appealed, and won again. The nice thing was that it wasn’t a case against the government, but against the lawyer who represented it, and that’s who ended up losing the judgment, their job, and ability to practice law.
While it’s nice to see the system correct the wrongs of it’s officers, it happens far too infrequently. You can draw your own moral from the story…
DN,
Sorry, didn’t bother to realize you were the OP! Please excuse me while I go clean the egg from my face.