Two stonewalling and foot-dragging prosecutors lose their jobs last night

[ksen]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/16/3760734/tim-mcginty-ousted/

The prosecutor who stalled the investigation of Tamir Rice’s shooting, fought against charging Rice’s killer, and launched a smear campaign against Rice’s mother was just ousted. Following years of controversy and calls for his resignation, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty lost to challenger Mike O’Malley on Tuesday night.

Thanks in large part to Black Lives Matter organizing, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez was also booted from office in Illinois. Alvarez, who waited more than a year to charge the officer who shot Laquan McDonald 16 times

good

 

[Derec]

I do not see why you see this as "good".
It's an example why DAs should not be an elected office. These two prosecutors lost their elections because they made politically unpopular decisions - but it is not the job of a DA to base their decisions on either politics or popularity. I mean what were they supposed to do? Base everything they do on how it will play in an election? That way you get somebody like Mike Nifong who decided to railroad the three innocent Duke students because he was up for election in a heavily black county.

 

[laughing dog]

Wow. Any DA who launches a smear campaign against anyone, let alone the mother of a shooting victim deserves to lose his job. The fact someone would defend such an asshole is unbelievable.

And I strongly suspect if the Cook County DA had waited a year to prosecute a black teenager for shooting a police officer, this forum would have had 10 to 20 apopletic threads started by our resident "un PCers".

 

[KeepTalking]

I do not see why you see this as "good".
It's an example why DAs should not be an elected office. These two prosecutors lost their elections because they made politically unpopular decisions - but it is not the job of a DA to base their decisions on either politics or popularity. I mean what were they supposed to do? Base everything they do on how it will play in an election? That way you get somebody like Mike Nifong who decided to railroad the three innocent Duke students because he was up for election in a heavily black county.

They were supposed to do their jobs. Their jobs are not to protect police officers from prosecution, but rather to file charges against anyone who is suspected of breaking the law, whether they wear a badge, or not.

 

[funinspace]

Double good! Thanks, I hadn't seen that.

 

[ksen]

I mean what were they supposed to do? Base everything they do on how it will play in an election?

I expect them to be impartial and consistent in the application of the law.

These two prosecutors were neither.

 

[JonA]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

 

[fromderinside]

I mean what were they supposed to do? Base everything they do on how it will play in an election?

I expect them to be impartial and consistent in the application of the law.

These two prosecutors were neither.

You just flashed for Derec .... again.

 

[fromderinside]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

So DAs who are human should be exempt from voter opinion because they are human? As far as I can tell humans interpret the law as humans do, from biased positions, so they should be held accountable to the range of human bias when their term is up.

 

[ksen]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

These two obviously didn't make their decisions based on getting re-elected. But if they did then they are terrible at reading their electorate.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

And how do we do that without having a system that turns into one where it is nearly impossible to remove a bad DA?

 

[JonA]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

So DAs who are human should be exempt from voter opinion because they are human?

Plenty of government positions are not open to popular vote.

As far as I can tell humans interpret the law as humans do, from biased positions, so they should be held accountable to the range of human bias when their term is up.

Like I said, there are ways to hold people accountable without politicizing every government position and turning it into a popularity contest.

 

[JonA]

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

And how do we do that without having a system that turns into one where it is nearly impossible to remove a bad DA?

Don't think so black and white.

I can think of many ways to pull this off. I'm surprised your imagination is so limited that you can't even think of one.

 

[laughing dog]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

Neither you nor Derec actually addressed the real issue - removing DAs who are not doing their job.

 

[JonA]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

Neither you nor Derec actually addressed the real issue - removing DAs who are not doing their job.

Except that's all we've been talking about, LD.

 

[laughing dog]

Neither you nor Derec actually addressed the real issue - removing DAs who are not doing their job.

Except that's all we've been talking about, LD.

That is factually incorrect. You have not addressed the issue at all other than to handwave some general statement.

 

[ksen]

And how do we do that without having a system that turns into one where it is nearly impossible to remove a bad DA?

Don't think so black and white.

I can think of many ways to pull this off. I'm surprised your imagination is so limited that you can't even think of one.

I don't need to think of one since we currently have a system where voters can get rid of DA's.

You're the one advocating different ways.

What are they?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The responses to Derec don't address his underlying point: that the DA should not be an elected position.

A prosecutor should make decisions consistent with the law as established by an elected legislature and not on the basis of what can get them re-elected.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

Yup. Electing prosecutors results in obvious suspects getting railroaded. Electing judges results in cases being decided based on what the people want rather than what the law wants.

(A clear local example of the latter: Locally we have a problem in the high pedestrian traffic areas of people passing out prostitute ads. It is a problem because most of the recipients see what it is and promptly drop it on the ground. Not only do you have the offended tourists but you get quite a litter problem. Again and again they attempt to pass laws against it. Again and again every elected judge who rules on the matter upholds the law. Again and again the first federal (not elected) judge who rules on the matter promptly smacks it down as unconstitutional--the laws always try to target the smut peddlers while exempting restauranteurs passing out ads etc. No matter how they try to dress it up that's an attempt to regulate the content of speech and quite rightly gets stomped on.

I still don't understand why they don't take a different approach--require anyone passing out materials pick up the litter that results to the extent it can legally and safely be done.)

 

[Metaphor]

These two obviously didn't make their decisions based on getting re-elected. But if they did then they are terrible at reading their electorate.

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

And how do we do that without having a system that turns into one where it is nearly impossible to remove a bad DA?

The directors of public prosecution in Australia are not elected and still the end times have not ravaged our justice system.

The American obsession with electing ordinary public servants might be good grist for the drama mill when it comes to protlines for TV dramas but it's no way to run a country.

 

[ksen]

How does it work in Australia?

I'm not looking to play gotcha I really want to know.

 

[MarkW]

There are plenty of methods for overseeing a DA and making sure they do their job correctly without politicizing the position.

And how do we do that without having a system that turns into one where it is nearly impossible to remove a bad DA?

Federal prosecutors (i.e., US Attorneys) are not elected, but I've never seen it suggested that they have a greater tendency to "go bad" than elected district attorneys.