“A federal appellate court … ruled that a Louisiana district attorney and several prosecutors in his office violated the law by using fake ‘subpoenas’ to pressure the victims and witnesses of crimes to meet with them, finding that the attorneys were not entitled to “absolute immunity” from legal liability.” [Jerry Lambe, Law and Crime; earlier (“Even though the subpoenas were unlawful, he really did jail people who didn’t obey them.”)]
4 Comments
Why does this guy (and all the other lawyers who participated in this) still have a law license?
Because the people who can revoke the law licenses – the Bar Association – consider this activity perfectly ethical. After all, they tolerated it for years.
It is one of the corruptions of the legal system that even when prosecutorial misconduct is so egregious that judges condemn them in court, the courts will not punish them – because that is left to the discretion of the bar associations. I am not aware of a single case where a corrupt prosecutor was disciplined by his bar.
I expect that once the first suit has been successful, the local bar will do something, like a suspension, in a “Shocked, shocked there’s gambling going on here” reaction.
Bob
Leon Cannizzaro was elected in late 2008 as DA of Orleans Parish, I can’t recall any of his predecessors being accused of similar activities. He was a district judge prior to that. These fake subpoenas have been common knowledge for some time, having been outed by the news media for quite a while, but he considers it to be OK and it has continued unabated.