JURIST Guest Columnists Stephen Cooper and Donnie W. Bethel discuss the effect of the behavior of Prosecutors who parade their cases to the media has on the Criminal Justice system…
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Prosecutors routinely call conferences to vet prosecution evidence under the glow of the media’s klieg lights–as occurred in the much-publicized Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery case in Netflix’s Making A Murderer–tainting the jury pool and infringing on Avery and Dassey’s constitutional right to a fair trial (as ably reported upon earlier this year in John Ferak’s column, “Legal experts blast Avery prosecutor’s conduct.“)
The same questionable litigation tactics, dressed up in federal garb, are on full display in Jeffrey Toobin’s May 9 article in The New Yorker, appropriately called, “The Showman,” about United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara‘s infatuation with and misuse of the media.
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