Professional Code of Responsibility
A minimum of 1,200 words (total assignment) and three scholarly sources. Scholarly sources does not count towards word count.
1.Based on what you know of the professional code of responsibility now, evaluate the legality/ethics of the following actions of a prosecutor:
• Announcing a suspect of a drive-by shooting to the media so the offender was in danger from rival gang members, and then offering protective custody only if the man would plead guilty.
• Authorizing the arrest of a 10-year-old boy who confessed to a crime, even though there was no serious possibility that he was guilty, in order to pressure a relative to confess.
• Authorizing the arrest of one brother for drugs, even though the prosecutor knew the charge would be thrown out (but the young man would lose a scholarship to college), in order to have leverage so that he would give evidence against his brother
2. You are a prosecutor in a jurisdiction that does not use the grand jury system. An elderly man has administered a lethal dose of sleeping tablets to his wife, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He calmly turned himself in to the police department, and the case is on the front page of the paper. It is entirely up to you whether to charge him with murder. What would you do? What criteria did you use to arrive at your decision
3. Analyze the following dilemma under the ethical formalism ethical system: You are a defense attorney who sees a judge in your jurisdiction having dinner with a prosecutor. Both are married to other people. You happen to have a case in front of this judge and the prosecutor is your opponent. You consider that you could request the judge recuse himself from the case, but this may create animosity, and if he refuses, it could be detrimental to your client. Alternatively, you could keep quiet and use the information on appeal, but this may mean your client spends years in prison. Finally, you could do nothing and hope that the judge is not biased toward the prosecution in his rulings. What would you do?
4. If a person can predict the decisions of the justices on the Supreme Court based on the conservative or liberal leanings of the Supreme Court justices, where does that leave the idea that no case is prejudged?
