For more than a decade, defense attorneys, innocence advocates and the wrongfully convicted have pushed Albany to create a body that could hold New York prosecutors accountable for their actions in court. In 2021, they finally got it.
Now, two years after the state’s Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct named an administrator and began taking complaints, the people who fought hardest are asking a hard question: Is it actually going to do anything?
People who file disciplinary complaints against attorneys have a First Amendment right to access related hearings, records and some final dispositions, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled.“ The question is whether public access provides a substantial benefit to the proceeding’s ability to carry out its purpose,” U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York wrote. “The court finds that it does. The public cannot have faith in a process that it cannot see.”
A New York appellate judge ruled that those who bring complaints against attorneys in discipline cases have a First Amendment right to attend hearings related to their cases, view documents necessary to understand proceedings, and see some final dispositions.
Public review is essential to hold accountable judges overseeing the process, who are elected to serve fourteen-year terms on the bench and are appointed to their spots by an also-elected governor, the court ruled. The Monday decision applies specifically to the New York Supreme Court Second Appellate Department, which considers whether to publicly discipline attorneys after hearing recommendations from an Attorney Grievance Committee.
NEW YORK, NY – New York law professors and non-profit Civil Rights Corps this week filed 10 ethics complaints against former and current New York prosecutors, alleging they improperly attempted to remove prospective jurors.
In a news release by Civil Rights Corps, the group explained the prosecutors allegedly tried to remove “Black, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, and white woman potential jurors.
NEW YORK CITY — A former Queens prosecutor faces an ethics complaint over a decades-old “cheat sheet” for jury selection that attorneys argued he used toward one of its stated goals: “Get white jurors.”
And the ethics complaint against Christopher McGrath is the only one filed this week that accused a current or former prosecutor of jury bias.
A group of law professors filed ethics complaints Monday alleging prosecutorial misconduct, including allegations involving four current Queens prosecutors who had been slapped by the appellate courts for racial or religious discrimination practiced under former District Attorney Richard Brown.
All four have since received raises from new DA Melinda Katz, according to city payroll records reviewed by THE CITY.
Ten current and former New York prosecutors who judges say illegally screened out potential jurors because of race or religion are facing ethics complaints that could prompt investigations or disciplinary actions.
(Reuters) – A federal court ruling last week vindicated crucial First Amendment rights and upheld the use of one of the only effective means of holding prosecutors accountable for misconduct — public exposure.
A U.S. district court in Manhattan held on June 13 that a group of six law professors can freely call attention to misconduct and unaccountability in district attorneys’ offices by publishing online their disciplinary complaints against prosecutors…
“Prosecutors are among the most powerful players in the criminal justice system. They can send a defendant off to years in prison, or even to death row. Most wield this power honorably. Yet, when prosecutors don’t, they rarely pay a price, even for repeated and egregious misconduct that puts innocent people behind bars. Why? Because they are protected by layers of silence and secrecy that are written into local, state and federal policy, shielding them from any real accountability for wrongdoing…”
“A legal matrix that incentivizes criminal convictions can motivate unethical prosecutors to bend or break the rules. In New York, a group of law professors is trying to curb that by pushing the system to discipline its own…”
Episode Guide and Resources here: https://70millionpod.com/season-4 (Scroll down to episode #6)
“Prosecutorial misconduct continues to be widespread in the courts across the country. As a report from a decade ago discovered, with over 800 instances of documented prosecutorial misconduct—much of it serious with grave effects—courts, district attorneys, and bar associations ‘rarely hold prosecutors accountable for their misconduct. In fact, the whole system incentivizes misconduct by using ‘court wins’ to measure prosecutorial success…’”
“In March, a Queens judge freed three men—George Bell, Gary Johnson, and Rohan Bolt—from prison after they served 24 years for the 1996 murders of a check-cashing store owner and an off-duty police officer in East Elmhurst. Judge Joseph Zayas found the trio had been wrongfully convicted because Queens prosecutors made false statements at trial and failed to turn over critical evidence pointing to alternative suspects in the high-profile case…”
The mass filing is part of a new strategy seeking greater accountability for prosecutors who break the rules. Listen to the powerful audio piece from WNYC