"Prosecutors are bound by a code of conduct to move forward only with cases in which they have confidence," said District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Krista Flannigan. "We're moving forward."
Anyone who has any criminal defense experience can tell you that is usually false. Most DA offices bring many cases that no sane person would truly have confidence in. The reason why they pursue them is a mixture of government funds, negative attention from other prosecutors if they dismiss a case, and the need for wins to advance in the DA office ranks. A win consists of guilty verdicts, pro-government plea bargains, and even deferred adjudication.
The area where this is seen most, although not exclusively, is in family violence cases. Often this is where a spouse, at one time, alleged abuse, but has now signed an affidavit for non-prosecution. This is where he or she voluntarily goes to the DA's office and says that he or she was falsely alleged abuse and will not testify against the other spouse. This statement by the DA's in the Bryant case is all too true.
"Any victim has the right to be heard," said Flannigan. "But ultimately it's the district attorney who makes that decision."
This isn't because they have a duty to move on in cases in which they have confidence. Rather, in these types of cases there is massive governmental funding available. The downside to this is that if they have too many dismissals of cases then the government takes away that funding.
This is the very reason we saw courts unconstitutionally allowing an excited utterance exception that occurred up to 23 hours later. This mean that if a spouse went to the police 23 hours after the alleged abuse, it did not matter if that spouse testified against the other spouse. Thankfully, Crawford v. Washington has fixed that practice. At least to some extent.
I have no real opinion about the whether Bryant did anything, besides that right now he is innocent of the charges. However, I think that there is little chance of a fair trial. With the recent posting of the victims full name on the court website in a document that was supposed to be sealed, and, accidentally emailing transcripts of a closed rape shield meeting to seven media outlets there is no chance of a fair trial. The girl alleging rape has had her life threatened, moved from state to state, and ultimately has seen her life ruined. All of this, of course, in the pursuit of justice. She wants to drop the criminal allegations and pursue this in civil courts.
I have little faith that the DAs will do that. I successfully argued for two dismissals in family violence courts, but it was extremely difficult. I was met with opposition from DAs in that court room and in others. The Judge, at first, was nearly unwilling to listen to my legal arguments for why trial was inappropriate. This difficulty was before the trial started; before the DAs had become fully vested in the outcome.
Not to be too damning of prosecutors, because I know of a few who are very fair. I think that a good amount of the DAs go into it for noble reasons. They bring real criminals to justice It just has never been my experience that prosecutors in district courts aren't only moving forward in "cases in which they have confidence." Right now, for instance, I'm handling a case that they are charging criminal trespass against a bonded repo man who entered an apartment after repeat attempts to work with the lady to get back the Rent-A-Center furniture. He followed all the usual protocol but has still been charged with a misdemeanor. The criminal code itself has exceptions that go against the DA's case, yet they somehow have "confidence." Please, what they are doing is wasting time and resources on frivolous prosecutions when they could be devoting those resources to win cases against people who have hurt society.
