Winter 2010 - The Innocence Project

18
INNOCENCE
BY THE NUMBERS
PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT
Prosecutorial misconduct undoubtedly leads to wrongful convictions, but because
of the surreptitious nature of misconduct, it’s difficult to measure the scope of the
problem. (Examples include withholding evidence from the defense, deliberate
mishandling or destruction of evidence, coercion of false confessions, the use of
unreliable government informants or snitches, and more.) Therefore, the data below
is not comprehensive and includes only cases in which information is available. These
numbers offer a glimpse of the frequency of prosecutorial misconduct and also reveal
the startling fact of how rarely prosecutors are held accountable for their actions.
Number of the first 255 DNA exonerees to allege prosecutorial misconduct in their
appeals or in a civil trial 63
Number of those 63 in which courts found error, whether harmful or harmless 30
Number of those 30 in which courts found “harmful error” that lead to a reversal
of the conviction 13
Number of cases of prosecutorial misconduct identified from 1997-2009 in California
through a Northern California Innocence Project investigation 707 *
Number of California prosecutors that were identified for repeated instances of
misconduct between the years 1997-2009 67
Number of those California cases from 1997-2009 in which prosecutors were
disciplined 6
Number of cases documented through a recent USA Today investigation in which
federal prosecutors violated laws or ethics rules since 1997 201 *
Number of cases identified by USA Today in which a federal prosecutor had been
disbarred, even temporarily, in the past 12 years 1
*See Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997-2009, by Kathleen M. Ridolfi and
Maurice Possley
*See “Prosecutors’ Conduct Can Tip Justice Scales” USA TODAY, Sept. 23, 2010 by Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy