Lew's AUTHOR BLOG

Senator Stevens … a victim of prosecutor misconduct (withholding of evidence) … similar to the misconduct of the prosecutor in Lew Weinstein’s novel “A Good Conviction”

as reported in the NYT (5/26/12) …

• The legal team that defended Senator Ted Stevens in his corruption trial has harshly criticized as “laughable” and “pathetic” the punishment that the Justice Department handed out to two prosecutors found to have engaged in reckless professional misconduct in the case.
• “No reasonable person could conclude that a mere suspension of 40 and 15 days for two of the prosecutors is sufficient punishment for the wrongdoing found in the report,” the Stevens legal team said in a written statement after the report was released Thursday.
• Mr. Stevens, a Republican, was convicted in 2008 of seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure documents.

The judge in the case dismissed the conviction in April 2009 after the Justice Department admitted misconduct.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/us/politics/penalties-for-stevens-prosecutors-called-pathetic.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

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Lew’s COMMENT …

Misconduct by prosecutors is a cancer on the American justice system.  Far more often than we would like to admit prosecutors either withhold evidence that tends to prove the defendant’s innocence or actually make up evidence to prove guilt (think jailhouse snitch). In most cases, even when a conviction is overturned due to prosecutor misconduct, the prosecutor is not charged or disciplined in any way. What prosecutor wants to prosecute a colleague?

In the Stevens case, an investigation was made, misconduct was proven, the guilty verdict was overturned, and the penalties given to the prosecutors were utterly ludicrous.

I wrote about this problem in a novel called “A Good Conviction,” where a young man is convicted of a murder he did not commit by a prosecutor who knew he was innocent. If you want to understand what it feels like to be in prison for a crime you did not commit, read “A Good Conviction.”

read the PROLOGUE of “A Good Conviction” here …  

 * A Good Conviction – Prologue

see what readers think at  … 

* praise for A Good Conviction

purchase  in paper or kindle at …

* A GOOD CONVICTION