If you’ve been following my recent blog posts about prosecutorial misconduct, then you understand the problem we are facing in the State of Texas.  DNA has set 41 people free from Texas prisons.  Some were sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit.  And, at least one person was executed in spite if significant scientific evidence of his innocence.  Those serious felonies get a lot of attention and legal wrangling for dozens of years.  Yet, every day in the State of Texas there are thousands of people convicted of misdemeanor crimes that get comparatively very little attention.  The sheer number of convictions indicate some of those are wrongful convictions.  Yet, increasingly we are seeing prosecutors violate the rule of law to win convictions against people they know, or should know, are innocent.  

Prosecutorial misconduct seems to be on the rise.  One man recently spent six extra years in prison while the prosecutor in his case waged a baseless legal campaign to keep him incarcerated.  That man had been wrongly convicted of murdering his wife.  All told, he spent twenty-five years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit.  When a complaint was filed with the State Bar over the prosecutor making bad faith arguments to keep him incarcerated well after his innocence was apparent, no action was taken.  

SUSPECTS ARE BEING ABUSED BY THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Harris County, Texas is embroiled in a battle right now over faulty breath machines used to obtain convictions in DWI cases.  The primary Assistant District Attorney responsible for prosecuting DWI cases, Rachel Palmer, was called before a grand jury to answer questions about what she knew and when she knew it about these machines.  Rather than answer the jury’s questions, she pled the fifth and refused to cooperate.  Why would a prosecutor who is sworn to uphold the law refuse to answer questions under oath about the performance of her job?  By inference, it seems she has something to hide about the way she has been obtaining convictions in DWI cases, yet she is still employed as a prosecutor.  

WHY A NEW LAW IS NEEDED

Even misdemeanor charges can cost you your job, family, and freedom - not to mention tens of thousands of dollars.  Texas proudly brags that a DWI will cost you $10,000.  But, what if you’re innocent?  What if the evidence against you is gained through improper or illegal means, and any evidence the State has to that proves your innocence was hidden from you or destroyed despite the fact that the State is required by law to give you that evidence?  Is that fair?  Of course not. 

There are three areas that the new law should address in order to compel the government prosecutors to play by the rules.  All three are necessary, because one by itself may not be enough deterrent to government employees bent on winning their case.

Disciplinary Action

Theoretically, prosecutors who violate the rights of defendants could face disciplinary actions by the Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s office, and could face criminal charges in both State and Federal Courts.  Unfortunately, that is not being done.  Prosecutor’s who violate your rights in order to win a conviction face termination from their job at the most - however, even that is not happening in Texas.  The new law needs a provision that requires the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, the Attorney General, or DPS to investigate claims of prosecutorial misconduct.  Getting an outside agency to conduct the investigation and turn their findings over - publicly - is the best way to ensure that cronyism or inattention does not let a prosecutor free to continue violating the rights of the accused.

Immunities

Even when defendants can prove that their rights were violated by prosecutor’s who hid evidence from defense counsel the defendant usually cannot sue the prosecutor personally, or the prosecutor’s office.  Prosecutors are government employees, and there are a bunch of immunities that apply to government employees.  An immunity simply means that you cannot sue them unless the state legislature gives you the right to sue them by passing a law to that effect.  So even after you spend tens of thousands of dollars proving your innocence, you cannot get a dime of that money back from a prosecutor who broke the law.  That is outrageous, and has to change!

Criminal Charges With Real Punishment

Prosecutors may feel free to violate your rights because they know they will never land in jail for doing so.  The Federal Government doesn’t go after state prosecutors for violating the rights of defendants like they went after the officers in the Rodney King beating.  They could, but they don’t!  

When a prosecutor violates the right of a defendant it is usually either not handled at all, or only handled internally within the prosecutors office. There is no public recognition or acknowledgement of the violation, and there is no apology issued to the defendant who just lost thousands of dollars defending himself due to the immunities for prosecutors.  That has to change!  If a prosecutor faced the same level of criminal charge that he or she charged a defendant with and violated that defendant’s rights then the prosecutor would be a whole lot more careful when deciding how far to push the envelope when prosecuting a case.  

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN

A new law needs to be passed.  This law needs to address each of these three areas of law.  In order to get the Texas Legislature to take our demands seriously, we need to collect signatures of citizens around Texas and around the nation to show them that We The People care about the rights our forefathers laid down their lives to earn for us.  Through their bloodshed they earned us the right to be free from a corrupt government.  It is up to us to protect those rights.  The beauty of our system of government is that we don’t have to use firearms to protect ourselves against the government.  We only need to use our voice and our vote.  

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you want to take a stand against corrupt government practices that locks our fellow citizens away then sign our petition by clicking the link below.  

Then go on Facebook and invite all of your friends to come sign our petition.  You can follow me on Facebook for all the latest news and commentary on this issue!

Also, go on Twitter and send out messages about our petition.  We need people to hear our voice.  Follow me on Twitter @DWIDUDE  If you tweet use the hashtag #DAMisconduct in your tweets so we can all watch this movement go viral.  

On a personal level, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this.  I know this is a lot of information, but it is important information.  I believe that the drive for freedom that created this country has passed to us all, and will keep us vigilant in the complex world we live in today.  After 9-11 our nation came together to heal and to remember the values that made us the greatest nation on earth.  We now live in, however, a post 9-11 world.  We cannot let that world turn us into the machine that our forefathers so despised that they had to rebel and create a new country based on the fundamental ideals that government unrestrained in action is government unrestrained in tyranny.  Thank you again.