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Check out the info below from the Phoenix New Times blog.
It relates to Bill Montgomery’s ongoing attempts to oppose rulings that would basically force prosecutors to reveal evidence of wrongful convictions… of which Arizona has more that its fair share.
Why are we not surprised?
Here’s the article:
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“As Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery fights to keep Debra Milke behind bars pending a retrial on her overturned murder conviction, he also is fighting a proposed rule to the State Bar of Arizona that would require prosecutors to act on new evidence of a wrongful conviction.
For the past two years, the Arizona Justice Project has petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court to change the State Bar of Arizona’s ethics rules, adding a provision based on the American Bar Association’s Ethical Rule 3.8.
The ABA’s rule states that if a prosecutor discovers “new, credible, and material evidence” of a wrongful conviction, he or she must disclose the evidence to the defendant and “undertake further investigation or make reasonable efforts to cause an investigation, to determine whether the defendant was convicted of an offense that the defendant did not commit.”
In a county that has given us the wrongful murder conviction of Ray Krone, the extra-constitutional antics of disbarred former county attorney Andrew Thomas, and now the overturned conviction of Debra Milke, whose still-warm spot on death row was secured via the testimony of a Phoenix Police Detective with a long history of lying and abuse of authority, a rule such as this would seem a no-brainer.
But not to Montgomery, who still wants his prosecutors to have the ability to hide the football after a conviction without fear of sanction by the state Bar.
In a comment to the court penned by Mark Faull, Monty’s chief deputy, Faull argues that these “new obligations” would be “confusing and burdensome” and that there is “no convincing evidence that Arizona has a ‘problem’ of wrongful convictions” or that “prosecutors have failed to take corrective action when appropriate.”
This proves conclusively that at least some prosecutors come from an imaginary planet where unethical behavior by their tribe does not exist.
By way of rebuttal, Larry Hammond of Arizona Justice Project points to “a recent study of Arizona appellate opinions between just 2004 and 2008 [that] revealed 20 cases of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Indeed, the National Registry of Exonerations lists 12 Arizona convictions dating back to 1977, including Krone’s, where those convicted were exonerated.
Hammond and the other petitioners note some Arizona cases in one filing, where they argue that the court should include the ABA’s requirement that the prosecutor investigate any new evidence.
Prosecutors already are required to turn over exculpatory material to the defense during a trial, so why not after conviction?
Because prosecutors, on the whole, do not like to relinquish a victory.
But it seems particularly rich that Montgomery would be opposing such a rule while looking to hang Debra Milke, for the second time, on the testimony of a deceitful cop.
And yet, Montgomery and other prosecutors want us all to trust that they would never hide the football from the defense, particularly when the accused’s life hangs in the balance…”
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Leave your thoughts & comments below…
SJ
Team Jodi
