3-31-17 National:Prosecutors commit misconduct when in the course of their professional duties they act in ways that are inconsistent with ethical mandates they are obliged to obey. Such misconduct exists at and near the intersection of two sets of rules: one is the legal rules that bind prosecutors so as to ensure due process – the state and federal constitution, statutory law, rules of criminal procedure, judicial orders, and the like. The other is the ethical standards of the legal profession as expressed in each state bar’s rules of professional responsibility and similar professional codes.
Often an act of prosecutorial misconduct will violate both legal and professional codes. Though, because the codes differ in some ways, sometimes an act of misconduct may violate one code but not the other. Prosecutors are required to abide by both.
Enforcement of the two codes differs. When prosecutors violate legal rules as part of a criminal case, the primary recourse is for the criminal defendant to ask to have his conviction overturned (or if the trial is in progress, to ask the judge for a mistrial, to strike matters from the record, or to otherwise minimize the damage caused). When prosecutors violate professional rules, the bar complaint process is the primary enforcement mechanism.
