Exam 10: Ethical Misconduct in the Courts and Responses

There are two basic philosophies regarding how to apply constitutional principles:

According to Model Rule 1.1, all attorneys must display an appropriate level of ___________ .

You are a prosecutor and are preparing for an upcoming trial. This is a case of arson, and the defendant is accused of setting fire to a barn, causing it to burn to the ground. According to the Brady decision, what are you obligated to do with the shoeprint information?

Brady violations are the most common accusations against prosecutors. You are a Federal Prosecutor who was recently appointed to your position after your predecessor resigned in shame. It was revealed that the man, whose job you now have, coerced, bribed, and otherwise solicited testimony that was perjured. Describe in detail how you will restore the public trust with your actions, and what ethical challenges you might face in the commission of your job.

You are a defense attorney defending a client against a murder charge. Your client is the former boyfriend of the victim, and it has been established by several witnesses that the breakup was not a pleasant one. Your client was identified as a suspect from the very beginning. During the trial, the prosecution presented a witness who claimed to overhear your client praying for forgiveness in his holding cell. The prosecution also presented the murder weapon, which was a softball bat with your client's fingerprint on the handle. Your client was convicted. The witness who the prosecution called to testify about supposedly overhearing your client pray is an example of a jailhouse informant. The prosecutor had doubts about the veracity of this testimony, especially considering that the witness demanded that his own charge be dropped in return for his testimony. The prosecutor decided to present the witness anyway, figuring that it might not be totally proper, but that since he was convinced your client was guilty, it was ok to bend the rules in order to secure the conviction. This is an example of:

Cummings used Bandura's moral disentanglement theory to explain:

You are a prosecutor and are preparing for an upcoming trial. This is a case of arson, and the defendant is accused of setting fire to a barn, causing it to burn to the ground. Initially, you charged the defendant with attempted murder, since there was reason to believe the barn might have been occupied at the time. In reality, you knew that you would not be able to prove this charge in court. You thought that adding this serious charge might lead the defendant to plead guilty to the arson charge if you agreed to drop the attempted murder charge. This arrangement would be a:

Antonin Scalia was among the foremost defenders of natural law.

Brady violations refer to:

You are a Supreme Court justice who came of age during the reforms of the Warren Court, and who believes it is necessary for the judiciary to return to a sense of natural rights. In order to convince your fellow justices on the Court that they should abandon their strict constructionism, you must write a letter to them, defending your beliefs from an ethical standpoint and why they should approach the Constitution from your perspective.

Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project asserts that many of the Brady violations occurring in prosecutors' offices are due to:

Prosecutors are completely protected against any liability that might arise as a result of such misconduct as lying on a warrant petition or coercing a confession.

Where do the Model Rules of ethical behavior for attorneys come from, and how are they enforced?

A study of exonerees found that _______ percent were minorities.

Explain the significance of the Brady v. Maryland and Batson v. Kentucky cases, as they relate to prosecutors' misconduct.

According to the text, only approximately 1 percent of investigations into attorney misconduct result in disbarment.

According to the text, the most common charge leveled against prosecutors is:

Police crime labs are occasionally criticized for cognitive biases which slant their results toward the constitution.  Opponents of private crime labs argue that those biases are also implicit in the business relationships engendered by an agency that seeks a conviction. You are the mayor of a small city in the Midwest, deciding on where your budget for lab work should go: to the police labs, or to private labs. Discuss in detail why impartial lab work is an issue and how you will arrive at your decision.

The _____________________ believes that an individual has no rights unless they are specified in the Constitution or are present in some other legal source.

Cummings used Bandura's __________ theory to explain intentional prosecutorial misconduct.