A Perfect Prosecution The People of the State of

Authors: JaneAnne Murray

Publish Date: 2013/12/24

Volume: 8, Issue: 2, Pages: 371-390

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Abstract

People v StraussKahn is an ideal lens through which to examine the operation of a criminal justice system that privileges the presumption of guilt or to use the words of the US Supreme Court in the 2012 decisions Lafler v Cooper and Missouri v Frye has become “a system of pleas not a system of trials” It is both an excellent example of a transparent and objective invocation of the criminal sanction and a sharp counterpoint to the vast majority of cases where law enforcement conclusions are privileged and rarely secondguessed As analyses of wrongful convictions have sadly but inevitably demonstrated the screening methods of police and prosecutors are fallible Moreover the prevalence of “tunnel vision” once the decision to charge has been made means that few cases experience the kind of postindictment investigation and reevaluation seen in the prosecution of Dominique StraussKahn Stage by stage the StraussKahn case illustrates how to counterbalance the presumption of guilt and give expression to the presumption of innocence in the pretrial period through vigilantlyinvoked and enforced due process protections Drawing from this examination the paper will then explore how to approach this model process in the more standard cases which typically see a fraction of the judicial law enforcement and defense resources afforded Dominique StraussKahn The StraussKahn prosecution offers several insights three of which will be sketched at the paper’s conclusion a requirement that prosecutorial decisionmaking be subject to a reasonable doubt standard vigilant and early enforcement of the prosecutor’s obligation to disclose information that is favorable to the accused and finally a requirement that a prosecutor explain in writing any decision to dismiss the felony charges in indicted felony cases so that the factual legal and policy bases of these decisions numbering almost one quarter of New York’s superior court felony cases annually can be analyzed and publicizedThe author would like to thank Stephen Cribari Antony Duff Barry Feld Howard Lavine Cynthia Monaco Douglas Morris Michael Murray Daniel Richman Richard Willstatter and all the participants in the Presumption of Innocence conference of the Robina Institute held at the University of Minnesota Law School in May 2012 in particular the discussants of this paper Josh Bowers and Michelle Dempsey

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