[melq]

>making the prosecutor kind of a criminal.

Never met a lawyer before huh?

Jokes aside, prosecutors pushing through cases they know to be unsound isn't exactly uncommon. Many prosecutors are more concerned with their conviction rates than they are in justice, because that's what they are measured and rewarded by.

[rtx]

I often hear this, who is rewarding them for high conviction rate.

[vkou]

Voters, because when it comes to issues of criminal justice, crowds are rarely paragons of sober temperance and restraint.

[jabits]

I think you are wrong and that most prosecutors want to do the right thing, like most working people

[JakeTheAndroid]

"Right" and "wrong" are dependent upon the system and how it rewards you.I would agree that most prosecutors what to serve justice for malfeasance that has been committed. That's different than whether a case is the "right" or "wrong" one to take.

If a case seems unclear, and you could spend years working on a conviction that will ultimately fall through, that hurts your ability to do justice for more readily winnable cases. You have to spend the time building a case, do all the paperwork, go to trial, etc. That's opportunity cost. So spending that on a case you have 10% chance of winning just isn't a good use of time. Add that to the fact that conviction rate is a metric used to quantify skill, you're rewarded for serving justice successfully. And that then dictates how much money you can get which can help fund enforcing justice.

I believe you're looking at the moral right/wrong, and I don't believe that is the same right/wrong being discussed in terms of how lawyers often choose cases. At the end of the day, lawyers need work and they get that mostly through word of mouth and reputation. You don't really get either of those when you lose cases.

[devlopr]

You're version of the right thing and the prosecutors version might not align.

The right thing for them is to put as many criminals behind bars. They review cases and pick ones they can win. They will attack and find unrelated weak points in your character to win. They believe they are doing the right thing and will use whatever they can legally against you. You being innocent and going to court is means someone made a mistake. To confess to a mistake loses you credibility, to confess to an ongoing process mistake could open up other cases where dangerous people could be set free.

Is that your version of the right thing?

[michaelmrose]

It is trial if wrong to convince one's self that accused are probably guilty and that actions that convict them are moral even the proof is insufficient or weak or the procedure flawed.

Most people want to do the right thing wherein right thing is almost entirely defined by norms and customs of their environment. If the norms and expectations are high ethical and correct standards people will follow them to the degree they are able.

To what degree are such standards broken or defective in America though?

Lest we forget the head lawyer of Texas a state home to aprox 27 million people or around 8% of the nation is a man whose own prosecution has for years only been stymied by the difficulty of prosecuting the man at the head of the states justice department. Either 8 or 9 (I've lost track) directly beneath him have resigned and accused him of corruption.

This isn't even an isolated instance corruption is found in fact all over the united states.

Even when in theory we would like to do the right thing we have a hard time establishing what standards are even real. Look at the fact. For proof of that look no further than the science of hair analysis which the FBI spent decades using to convict the accused before we realized that they were incapable of differentiating dog hair from human hair.

Think of entire people going in to work producing work product about imaginary science they were pretending to do competently and sending people to death row in part because of their fake work product.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo...

The justice system in America is a bad joke that is primarily differentiated from say Cuba in that bribes are paid to your lawyer instead of directly to government officials.

[spoonjim]

Prosecutors are shaped by an environment that equates “the right thing” to “punishing the guilty.” It’s like any profession... a surgeon will think you need surgery and a prosecutor will think the guy in handcuffs needs to go to jail.

[hluska]

Sadly, evidence contradicts that thought. It shouldn’t but it does.

[hutzlibu]

Everyone wants to do the right thing.

It is just that some think the right thing for themself is to maximize their career progress.

And I would not know in general about state prosecutors, but what I know anecdotally second hand, does not sound good.

[melq]

I believe that's true as well, and I never said otherwise.