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Here’s part 2 of Michael Keifer’s new series, which highlights & fully details countless instances of prosecutorial misconduct in AZ over the past 11 years… where winning is invariably far more important than the truth.
Kudos to Michael Keifer for his highlighting of this issue too. He’s already taking flak on his Twitter account from delusional pedo-huggers & people with a necrophilia fetish… and long may it continue. After all, everyone else’s fuck-ups get highlighted. Why should prosecutors fuck-ups be treated any different?
You can keep up with all Michael’s tweets right here in his Twitter page.
Kermit’s antics will be featured in Part 3, tomorrow. Should be interesting.
Here’s the latest installment:
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Prosecutors under scrutiny are seldom disciplined (Part 2/4)
by Michael Kiefer:
[hdplay id=247 width=500 height=300]
“Richard Wintory was Arizona Prosecutor of the Year in 2007. Wintory had spent 20 years as an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma, another seven in the Pima County Attorney’s Office, and by 2010 had moved on to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, where he continued to try criminal cases, especially death-penalty cases.
Now he is chief deputy in the Pinal County Attorney’s Office.
He is also the focus of an investigation by the State Bar of Arizona because a Pima County Superior Court judge referred him to the State Bar of Arizona for improper contact with a member of a murder suspect’s defense team.
Prosecutors are frequently accused of misconduct during criminal cases, and even if a trial judge or a court of appeals agrees that they acted badly, it rarely affects the conviction or sentence of the trial defendants.
Wintory calls himself an “impassioned” attorney; others might say he pushes the envelope.
“In the 30 years I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve had many people file complaints and lawsuits against me, but I’ve never been disciplined,” he said.
In Arizona, prosecutor misconduct is alleged in half of all capital cases that end in death sentences.
Half the time, the Arizona Supreme Court agrees that misconduct occurred in those instances, but it rarely throws out a conviction or sentence because of it.
The Arizona Republic reviewed all of the Arizona Supreme Court opinions on death sentences going back to 2002.
Of 82 cases statewide, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged on appeal by defense attorneys in 42 and the court found improprieties or outright misconduct in 18 instances. But only two of those death sentences were reversed because of the improprieties, and only two prosecutors were disciplined.
The offenses varied in seriousness from excessive sarcasm and vouching for the sincerity of witnesses to introducing false testimony and failing to disclose evidence that might have helped the defendant.
But overwhelmingly, even when misconduct was found, the high court determined that it was “harmless error.”
The most serious examples did not appear in those cases because the misconduct caused a mistrial or the prosecution offered a favorable plea agreement to avoid mistrial, as in Wintory’s case.
It is rare for prosecutors to be referred to the Bar for misconduct, let alone be disciplined by the Bar or sanctioned by trial judges. And whether Wintory will be disciplined remains to be seen…….”
>>> CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2 IN FULL AT AZCENTRAL.COM <<<
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Remember…
WE ARE TEAM JODI – AND WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS in our quest for JUSTICE FOR JODI!
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SJ
Team Jodi
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