Exactly one week ago on two separate cases Katherine Fernandez-Rundle's office failed to prove that the person charged had committed any crime. Two murder cases. On the same day.
"We got a bad jury." "The cops screwed up." "The witnesses got killed on cross."
The latter are the reactions to the former when cases, including murder cases, are lost in Ms. Rundle's office.
It is a culture of failure.
Some judges say to prospective jurors during the jury selection process, "A not guilty verdict is justice as much as a guilty verdict is." The closest accurate statement to what the judge means when (s)he says that is the double negative, "a not guilty verdict is not an injustice," but a double negative is not the same as a positive.
A not guilty verdict can mean that the last chance to keep an innocent person from being convicted has occurred. It does not mean that justice occurred when the case was filed, or when the prosecution continued through the deposition and pretrial preparation stages. Much more frequently a not guilty verdict means that the person charged committed the crime but that Ms. Rundle's office failed to prove it.
"We got a bad jury," or "the cops screwed up," or "the witnesses got killed on cross" are the mindset of the culture of failure and that culture of failure is created by Ms. Rundle's political interests. She cannot be tainted by failure or incompetence, that would reflect badly on her politically. So not guilty verdicts are explained as not her fault, but the fault of others and therefore there's no cause for scrutiny, improvement, or accountability.
This politics creates injustice. It is the prosecutor's ethical obligation only to bring charges in court when (1) there is a legal basis, (2) there is a factual basis, and (3) a reasonable jury could convict on the evidence that would be presented at trial. It is at the stage of filing a case, at the deposition stage, at the pretrial preparation stage--it is at those stages where the prosecutor must stop a flawed prosecution. Not take it to trial and let a jury decide. A criminal trial brought by the prosecutor's ethical standards--and those are the standards--should not result in an acquittal.
Any not guilty verdict should be scrutinized for the cause or causes. Ms. Rundle and the supervisors of the trial lawyers in her office do not do that either. Two not guilty verdicts in two murder cases on the same day is systemic failure, it is politics creating injustice.
-David Ranck
