Question

You are teaching a class in criminal justice and you are discussing the topic of the ethical duties of prosecutors. You tell the class prosecutors have a number of specific ethical obligations such as disclosing exculpatory evidence, avoiding conflicts of interest, and refraining from any behavior that would interfere with fair administration of justice. Give an example of each of these duties. A student asks if ethics can sometimes "get in the way" of a prosecutor doing her job. How do you respond?

Answer 1

# Examples for each duty:-

(1) Disclose exculpatory evidence

It is one of the most notable obligation imparted both legally and ethically on prosecuting attorneys. An exculpatory statement is defined as the statement by the defendant that tends to clear a defendant from alleged guilt.

Example:-

Lets suppose the defendant is a tall man with short hairs and is taken into charge of robbery and when the CCTV footage of robbery comes, it shows that the perpetrator is in fact a short women with long hairs. Thus this CCTV footage would be exculpatory because it oppose the defendant's guilt.

(2) Avoiding conflicts of interest

The basic formulations of the conflict of interest rule is that a conflict exist" if there is a substantial risk that the lawyer's representation of the client would be materially and adversly affected by the lawyer's on interest or by the lawyer's duties to another current client.

For eg- A conflict of interest would come up if an attorney tried to represent both the husband and wife in a divorse case. We know that in a divorce case each party wants exactly the opposite of what the other party wants. So how could the attorney effectively and successfully represent both the parties. That's not possible.

(3) Refraining from any action that would interfere with fair administration of justice.

A procecutor should not interfere with the competence of the legislative and the executive powers.

For examplke- If any prosecutor favours the interest of specific groups or any time of discrimination on the basis of sex, race , color , language. Association with a national minority is also included under such acts and are offensive.

(PART-2)

The primary duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice within the bounds of the law. He should only make use of ethical guaidance which is offered by judiciary and not just reside on their own ethics. The procecutor serves the public interest and should act with integrity and balanced judgement based on the judicial ethics and not by his own ethics.