We had to share this article published by TDCAA's California counterpart, the California District Attorneys Association, as a response to the Innocence Project. Download it below; here is a tiny snippet:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Prosecutors have a very unique role: Prosecutors represent society—all of the members of
society, including victims and defendants. In this regard, prosecutors have a duty to ensure
the fairness of criminal proceedings. The United States Supreme Court noted in Berger v.
United States:

[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a
controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as
compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in
a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be
done.1

Because of this role, the ethical standards imposed upon prosecutors are extraordinary;
prosecutorial misconduct is not tolerated. In fact, the Berger Court recognized that while it is
a prosecutor’s recognized duty to “use every legitimate means available to bring about a just
[conviction],” he or she may not use “improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful
conviction.”2

Over the last few years, there seems to have been a concerted effort to discredit the
prosecutorial profession. A few news organizations, including the Chicago Tribune and
USA Today, have issued results of unscientific surveys that attempt to demonstrate that
prosecutorial misconduct is a significant issue in the federal courts as well as in some state
courts. None of these surveys has been able to uncover any but the rarest instances of
intentional misconduct by prosecutors, state or federal.

Most of these reports succumb to their own inaccuracies and die a natural death. One
recent report, however, has managed to gain some public traction. The Northern California
Innocence Project’s Veritas Initiative conducted and published a “study” referred to
generally as the “NCIP Report.” This initial lengthy document, Preventable Error: A Report on
Prosecutorial Misconduct in California, 1997–2009, was followed up by an “addendum” of the
same data: the First Annual Report: Preventable Errors—Prosecutorial Misconduct in California
2010.3

Endnotes

1. Berger v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 78, 88.
2. Id. [Emphasis added.]
3. The Veritas Initiative, the “investigative watchdog” entitity of the Northern California Innocence
Project, published two connected reports. The first was authored by Kathleen M. Ridolfi and Maurice
Possley: Preventable Error–A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997–2009, released on
October 4, 2010; it is referred to in this document as the NCIP Report. The second publication, written
by Maurice Possley and Jessica Seargeant, amended and updated the first report; First Annual Report:
Preventable Error–Prosecutorial Misconduct in California, 2010 (March 2011) shall be quoted to as the
NCIP First Annual Report.

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