Prosecutors: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

criminal justice the process by which you are arrested charged and eventually go before a jury who render their verdict we find the defendant Robert Brooks not guilty we find Randall Bailey guilty we find the defendant not guilty have you reached the wording guilty or not guilty that is just objectively charming although all these years later I still can't believe those penguins wrongfully convicted the Central Park five now whenever whenever we talk whenever we talk about criminal justice reform we tend to just talk about policing public defenders judges and prisons and skip over a crucial element there prosecutors the attorneys who work for the federal state and local government and bring cases to trial there are roughly 2,500 DA's offices all around the country and they have a surprising amount of influence at almost every single stage of the criminal justice system because prosecutors decide whether you get charged and what you get charged with and therefore heavily influenced what kind of sentence you could face and you you sort of know deep down how important they are because of a little phrase that crops up constantly in local news crime stories ultimately it'll be prosecutors who decide whether charges will be filed prosecutors will decide whether to file criminal charges prosecutors will decide what happens next prosecutors will decide exactly prosecutors will decide it's one of those three word phrases that you hear so often you don't even think about what it means anymore like User Agreement update or some restrictions apply or Tyler Perry presents you know at this point I'm just going to assume that he presents everything it's safer that way I technically think he presents this show I wouldn't be completely surprised about that I look we tend not to think about that power very much except when there is a high-profile controversy concerning prosecutors failure to exercise it as has happened in numerous police shootings of unarmed black men or when Manhattan da saw Vance declined to prosecute Harvey Weinstein in 2015 citing insufficient evidence despite police officials insisting that they had plenty of evidence including Exhibit A his face but but it but it is worth talking about what happens when prosecutors do decide to exercise that power because while many try to do their jobs honorably that power can be misused or amplified the inequities inherent in the system and let's start with a truly incredible fact here the vast majority of the time your fate is not decided by a judge or a jury of your peers because nearly 95 percent of the cases prosecutors decide to bring end up with the defendant pleading guilty now what that means is no trial no innocent until proven guilty just a prosecutor striking a deal behind closed doors and many judges are resigned to that fact because at least plea bargains keep the system moving the system would collapse if every case that was filed in the criminal justice system were to be set for trial the system would just entirely collapse exactly it's an inadequate system that only functions if people constantly give up it's built on the exact same model as AT&T x' customer service hotline that's right AT&T new owners of HBO longtime owners of an unforgivably dog customer service hotline if somebody pleads guilty they they must have done it that's not necessarily the case in Houston testing of samples in drug cases have exonerated 133 people since 2014 and those people had pled guilty in every single case which is messed up the only people who should be claiming to have used drugs when they happen to awkward teenagers at high school parties oh I'm totally a wieder I'm into all the weeds I'm stoning right now that's how potted I am so so why do innocent people plead guilty what prosecutors will often offer a deal while threatening that if you go to trial they will stack charges against you and pursue a much harsher sentence it's something commonly referred to as a trial penalty just listen to Rodney Roberts he was accused of a sexual assault the DNA evidence later proved he did not commit and I'll let him explain what he took a deal when I finally got to the court this attorney he came in and told me that the prosecutor office had a plea agreement from it and like plea agreement even do it you know I pled not guilty I'm innocent he was like this urgent he was this pressure and he was like if you don't take this deal the only offer your two years you're home in two years and if not you know they're gonna take it off to trial and a judge is ready to give you a life sentence if you get found guilty and I think you're gonna get found guilty and this is my attorney telling me it's the one person I had to dead out me so I thought that to get home to my son they're my family and established in my life that the best thing I could do for myself was to plead guilty and fight it once I got home and as crazy as it sounds to hear that it kind of makes sense two years in prison is terrible but a life sentence is absolutely terrifying the only way that makes sense were defendant to risk that is if they're a gerbil because two years in life are basically the same thing to those litters but but but let's say you are one of the five percent of people who risk going to trial prosecutors still have lots of ways to try and gain an advantage for instance prosecutors are not allowed to discriminate by race during jury selection and if it's suspected that they are the Supreme Court has said that they could be required to provide race neutral explanations for striking tours which sounds like a good rule but it has been laughably easy for them to get around because judges will accept just about any reason in Texas a training document for prosecutors even conveniently listed examples of race-neutral reasons that judges had accepted including having a 1970s hairdo being a very pretty girl who might be attracted to the defendant or the defense counsel wearing a Malcolm X hat agreeing with the OJ Simpson verdict being a male wearing earrings in both ears and my personal favorites for wearing a bad boys club jacket pink hat and snakeskin belts which is just insulting because that look does not make you untrustworthy it makes you awesome I like the way I look at guarantee perhaps the area where prosecutors can exert the most influence concerns evidence because they control the case files things like police reports witness information and physical evidence and while they are required to hand over anything that is exculpatory or that might be useful in your defense in some states including New York they can do that at the very last minute something incredible happens on the day of trial certainly a case file that for a year was this thick suddenly now becomes this thick and so in our most serious cases in the cases where we have climbed to are looking at incredible amounts of potential jail time even life in jail this is what we are given when DA's answer ready for trial and the reality is is that in Manhattan too often it is trial by ambush it's true and they can then have to argue a case without having read all the important material it's basically a much higher stakes version of a kid giving a presentation in English class without having read the book in conclusion whether Heights the heights are watering but by the end the heights rather much more than they weathered at the beginning of the book thank you for your time just a quick but important message for English teachers no one has ever read a single book you have ever assigned it has never happened not once and look sometimes defense attorneys may not be given exculpatory evidence at all in fact among exoneration cases around 1/4 of them involve prosecutors concealing its culprit ory evidence and that is because prosecutors typically get to decide whether something is relevant to the defense which seems inherently flawed you can't just count on an adversary to voluntarily expose all of their weaknesses in Star Wars the rebels had to steal the Death Star plans the Empire didn't just email it to them with a subject line for word gigantic stupid weak spot parentheses very dumb go to town and when prosecutors do withhold evidence there is very little accountability for them take Michael Morton like in 1987 he was wrongfully convicted of his wife's murder after the prosecutor in that case withheld crucial pieces of exculpatory evidence now the good news is that prosecutor Ken Anderson was held to account for that misconduct the bad news is there was a slight discrepancy between the two men's sentences Morton served nearly 25 years in prison 8900 95 days and now the sentence for the prosecutor just 10 days in jail for contempt of court 10 days and he served less than half that although before you get too mad he did also have to pay a $500 fine which which isn't really the penalty you'd expect for wiping out 25 years of someone's life it's close to what you'd expect for a cantaloupe at Whole Foods 10 days for the public indecency $500 for the cantaloupe and to make it to make it even worse Anderson is actually the only prosecutor to ever serve any time for misconduct resulting in a wrongful conviction ever because the truth is prosecutors rarely face any sort of consequences for misconduct state bars are supposed to hold them accountable but a study of five states found that in 660 cases where courts had confirmed prosecutorial misconduct the number of prosecutors disciplined in those cases was one and that lack of accountability can fuel a dangerous culture where winds are already prioritized to a disturbing degree in fact in one DA's office in Colorado prosecutors were paid bonuses for achieving a high conviction rate and in Texas a DA rewarded convictions in misdemeanor cases with a prize that they called the trial dog award and let me just say as the proud proud owner of nine trial dogs my award goes to this one please don't die please please don't die I can't how important it is for you to hang in there and and and there was there was the notoriously aggressive office also of New Orleans DA Harry Connick senior who is yes Harry Connick Jr's dad in fact here they are on Harry jr. short-lived talk show singing a weirdly inappropriate Joette just well the [Music] [Applause] Harry's wild about me the heavenly places of his kisses yeah now if you didn't see any problem with that he's just a fun experiment for you to try at home call your own father right now tell him that the heavenly bliss is of his kisses fill you with ecstasy and just see how that goes my prediction is your next fishing trip is going to be extra quiet but during his time as New Orleans da lots of people were wild about Harry Connick senior because his office was famously ruthless Harry Connick was tough on crime he was very aggressive and he wanted to block him all up forever conics lead prosecutor was Jim Williams Jim took great pride in his numerous death penalty convictions he even kept a miniature electric chair on his desk Jim was regarded as one of the most aggressive prosecutors in the District Attorney's Office he described sliding up behind defendants in the courtroom and buzzing in their ears to mimic the the buzz of electricity holy that is just not okay although there was also literally no scenario in which sliding up behind someone in saying buzz in their ear is acceptable not even if you are Neil Armstrong on the moon and you need to get Buzz Aldrin's attention hey buzz buzz buzz buzz we're on the moon buzz buzz buzz buzz are you mad I was first buzz buzz but but that office is win at all costs culture resulted in some serious mistakes as it turns out fully a quarter of the men sentenced to death during conics tenure had their convictions overturned because of improperly withheld evidence and remember that little electric chair when the prosecutors had on his desk here's a fun fact in the photo of Jim Williams with the electric chair of the five faces visible all of them were released from death row yep the thing he kept as a token of his success is now a monument to poor decision-making it is the prosecutorial equivalent of Cuba Gooding jr. zaask er and look if you want to see why did that joke upset you more than anything else tonight you have got to be consistent you've got to be you might care about Cuba you care about him too much in this context and look if you want to see all the problems that I've described tonight in action just take a look at the case of Glen Ford who was on death row for 30 years after being wrongfully convicted now the prosecutor on his case Marty Stroud says that he got caught up in an aggressive hard-charging culture and admits to among other things deliberately excluding African American jurors and overlooking evidence that would have cleared Glen Ford and what happened clearly still haunts him I ended up without anybody else's help putting a man on death row who didn't belong there I mean at the end of the day beginning in middle whatever you want to call it I did something that was very very bad yeah it was it was very very very bad in fact the problem is that while he is clearly remorseful in terms of accountability there were no professional sanctions for his actions in fact the acting da after Ford was released Dale Cox doesn't even believe that Stroud should have apologized did mr. Ford get justice in this case I think he has gotten delayed justice the system did not fail mr. Ford it did not it did not in fact the system you see that because he's not on death row and that's how I can say it getting out of prison after 30 years is justice well it's better than dying there and it's better than being executed yeah I guess that's true but listen to how low he's setting the bar they're better than being executed or dying in prison by that measure anything succeeds Taco Bell better than being executed or dying in prison although when you think about it is it is it definitely between 2010 and 2014 that man's office was responsible for sending more prisoners to death row than anywhere else in the country and if you think the Glen Ford debacle may have made him more cautious you would be wrong I think society should be employing the death penalty more rather than less but there have been ten other inmates on death row in Louisiana who have been exonerated clearly the system is not flawless are you sure that you've gotten a right all the time I'm reasonably confident that that I've gotten it right oh you're reasonably confident are you that does not seem like it should be the standard to send someone to death row I was reasonably confident I could pull off bangs I was wrong about that and if someone's life depended on it I might have given it a little more thought and look at this point you may well be wondering how can we fix some of what we've seen tonight well clearly permanent legislative fixes are badly needed from requiring greater transparency from prosecutors about sharing evidence through so-called open file laws to ideally establishing independent commissions to investigate misconduct but depending on where you live there may actually be a more direct way for you to effect change because DA's are usually elected it's something you might sometimes forget until you see aggressive campaign attack ads like this one which ends in a bizarre turn of phrase this is how many child molesters the Calcasieu Parish do he has prosecuted as lead counsel how many murders how many rapes Roberts meanwhile our sheriff reports crime is on the rise and Calcasieu Parish Steve Street for District Attorney he'll try harder and a lot more but he would try a harder and a lot more often that's a pretty weak promise Steve the was your opponent's Logan Nathan Hamilton justice on Mondays and Wednesdays unless something comes up well it seems like it's gonna be a whole thing look the facts prosecutors are elected means that you can change them the problem is around 85% of prosecutors actually run unopposed in both primary and general elections it's gotten so bad that in one County in Washington state their prosecutor had run for ten terms without any opposition so four years ago in frustration someone ran ran their dog against him I know I know what you're thinking I'll great another white dog prosecutor and I'm not saying you're wrong but let's go one step at a time here look clearly we need more reform-minded DA's to run because thanks to the extreme breadth of power they have that could actually be a backdoor way to effect change on a whole host of issues from fail to the misuse of forensic science to the enforcement of marijuana laws and maybe you are one of the lucky ones here maybe your local DA is great or maybe they're a win obsessed whose heavenly Bliss's of their kisses fill their adults songs with ecstasy or maybe a live in Washington State over the past four years your district attorney has been this dog and you didn't even realize it because can you honestly say with a hundred percent certainty that your district attorney is not a dog you probably can't and that's kind of the problem here most people know as much about their local DA as they know about their local Cheesecake Factory manager chances are you don't know who they are and if you do it's probably because something truly terrible has happened but the truth is like the Cheesecake Factory prosecutors have the ability to ruin lives in a second so so we need to find out who our DA's are and get a sense of the policies and priorities that they're carrying out where we live because if we do not decide ourselves what we want the criminal justice system to look like deep down you know who will exactly they will

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 8,781,507

Keywords: last week tonight prosecutors, prosecutors, john oliver prosecutors

Id: ET_b78GSBUs

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 05 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/StuCK-ONMew_T]

I'm glad he talked about discrimination in the juri selection, I think OJ's trial would've been very different if that rule wasn't so easily abused.

PS: It's also funny that he mentions Cuba Gooding Jr. because he played OJ in American Crime Story, which is really well done despite being inferior to OJ: Made in America (probably the best documentary I've ever seen, I recommend it).

[u/way2sl0w]

ELI5: How can you research if your local DA does these kind of shady things?

[u/INBluth]

Aaaaannnnnd depressed.

[u/AndiAusAusland]

Yeah, another episode of "Thank god i don't live in America"!

[u/HitzKooler]

Your DAs get elected? I hope studying law is at least a prerequisite for the office?

[u/Grundleheart]

tl;dw (mostly all-inclusive):

• Plea deals suck dung beetle architecture for numerous reasons.

• Race-related jury selection doesn't seem to actually exist/be enforced at all. Funny (depressing) examples included.

• Prosecutors in many states basically have a stacked deck in terms of making a defendant's trial process impossible to win / can withhold exculpatory evidence for long periods of time/indefinitely.

• Prosecutors aren't ever (with literally 1 exception) held accountable for misconduct.

• A decent Cuba Gooding Jr. zing

• Lots of old white guys saying the system is fine! Which I think we all expected going in to this.

• Two full fistfulls of examples where death row inmates being exonerated (after serving in prison on death row) is the justice system working fine (according to one old white guy)

• Steve Streete has an eery election commercial, also it turns out prosecutors are elected and are rarely opposed when running.

• In the end prosecutors will decide -- call to action to actually care about local prosecutor elections and enact widespread, local change that could actually create a lot of //the greater good//

[u/DarthGogeta]

Land of the free...

[u/ViskerRatio]

What Oliver didn't mention is the extreme asymmetry in power enjoyed by prosecutors over defendants. If you're an average citizen, being charged by a prosecutor is a devastating life event - no matter what the outcome may be. If you go to trial, you're going to end up missing weeks of work. You're going to be shelling out enormous amounts of money - that you probably don't have - to get adequate legal representation.

The prosecutor controls massive investigatory resources. You can hire a private investigator out of pocket. The prosecutor can compel testimony by threatening legal action. You can ask nicely. The prosecutor can get warrants to search private property and wiretap. You can hope they search places and wiretap people who provide exculpatory evidence. The prosecutor has a ready supply of expert witnesses who will provide expected testimony - even if that testimony is based on nothing more valid than a vague guess. You have to hire - again, at your expense - expert witnesses to counter.

Oliver's notion that voters are going to fix the problem by tossing out prosecutors at the polls is also naive. A perfect example of this would be the Brock Turner situation in San Francisco. He was prosecuted for rape. But a lot of people thought his sentence was too light and they ended up actually throwing the judge who gave it out of office - despite the fact that virtually every legal expert in California thought it was an appropriate sentence given the facts of the case. Do you really think that pitchfork-wielding mob is voting for prosecutors are who are 'soft on crime'?

I don't think so. The number of people terrorized by an out-of-control prosecutor is largely limited to the very small number of people he convicts. The number of people terrified of a prosecutor who doesn't aggressively pursue crimes consists of a large segment of the electorate. What the Brock Turner case should demonstrate is that the people you'd most expect to be eager to restrain prosecutors are, in fact, foaming at the mouth to throw the book at 'em when you provide the right narrative.

I don't know that there's a good answer for this, but it does help to dispel the illusion that our justice system works according to the 18th century mechanics we imagine. In truth, the main way you end up a convict isn't the accumulation of objective evidence, carefully weighed by 12 upstanding citizens, but based on the gut instinct of prosecutors and law enforcement. If your back story makes you a likely suspect, that same back story will make you a likely convict - whether or not you actually did the crime.

[u/BoogsterSU2]

Now this is an issue that you might not have thought about it before....

(video segments will be posted either soon or tomorrow)

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