Judges and DAs come into the world the usual way, consist of flesh and blood, they put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us and they pretty much go potty like the rest of us do. They are no more noble or virtuous than the rest of us, and in some cases less so, as they suffer from the usual human imperfections and frailties Their demeanor outside the courtroom is indistinguishable from anyone else, but when they dress up for court, their demeanor inside the court room changes quite dramatically. Once the judges put on their black robe of power, they seem to go through some sort of evil transformation; they become better than us, they become more equal than us, they become self-righteouus. They seemingly rank themselves higher and like the pigs in Animal Farm, they become more equal If the judge or DA has strong religious ties, you will not be told. As we know, religion poisons everything and you will be judged by religious morality, not reason and law. Their judgements will be heavily biased. This becomes a major problem for those who advertise their faith or lack thereof. As pathological liars, the police, DAs and judges will collectively conspire to commit perjury to make their case and avoid prosecution. There is simply no penalty for perjury. The court system will protect them if they charged with perjury. The Untouchables: Prosecutorial/Judicial Misconduct We very rarely see any penalty imposed on police officers, DAs and judges for their excesses, malfeasance or malice. They never suffer any loss of job, loss of pay, loss of freedom, etc. There is virtually no accountability in surfeit of prosecutorial malfeasance, from incompetence, to poor training, to a culture of conviction that included both willfully ignoring evidence that could lead to exoneration, to blatantly withholding it. This is a system that is void of integrity. Mistakes can happen. But if you don't do anything to stop them from happening again, you can't keep calling them mistakes. We witness an increasing number of aggressive prosecutions that look politically motivated. Even many on the political right, traditionally a source of law-and-order-minded support for prosecutors, have raised concerns about overcriminalization and the corresponding power the trend has given prosecutors. Like police, prosecutors are relied upon to police themselves, and it isn't working. A growing chorus of voices in the legal community says the problem is rooted in a culture of infallibility, and an environment of legal invincibility. A long series of Supreme Court decisions going back to the 1970s have in essence insulated prosecutors and judges from any real consequences of their actions. Prosecutors and their advocates say complete and absolute immunity from civil liability is critical to the performance of their jobs. They argue that self-regulation and professional sanctions from state bar associations are sufficient to deter misconduct. Yet there's little evidence that state bar associations are doing anything to police prosecutors, and numerous studies have shown that those who misbehave are rarely if ever professionally disciplined. No one mentions that state bar associations are packed with lawyers who are in essence protecting their own species and the legal swamp. We have a prosecutorial climate that value conviction above all else and simply ignore true justice. In a culture where racking up convictions tends to win prosecutors promotions, elevation to higher office with high paying gigs with white-shoe law firms, civil liberties, activists and advocates for criminal justice reform worry there's no countervailing force to hold overzealous prosecutors to their ethical obligations. Even in the office of the Middlesex County DA we have an ethos of impunity. I would not be surprised if the DA's office gives out plaques for every conviction, like a gunfighter has a notch for every man he killed. Secrecy also makes it more difficult to assess the pervasiness of misconduct. One of the most pervasive misdeeds is the Brady vs Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), supressing exculpatory evidence violation , or the failure to turn over favorable evidence to the defendant. It's the most common form of misconduct cited by courts in overturning convictions. We have created a culture of indifference about disclosing exculpatory evidence. A Brady violation is by definition a coverup, and a suppression of evidence. Knowingly witholding exculpatory evidence is unquestionably a breach of ethics, but it should be a felony. There seems to be an active unwillingness to follow the rule of law. The overall incidence of prosecutorial misconduct is drastically masked by the high rate (90%) of plea bargains. One of the main reasons that prosecutors or judges are never brought to justice is the Christmas Party problem. Nearly all the judges are former prosecutors. There is a very strong undercurrent of alliance between judges and prosecutors, so there is a certain congeniality there. They run in the same circles. They attend the same Christmas parties. I'm pretty sure that Judge David W. Cunis, Jessica Hogan and Marian T. Ryan have all been to the same Christmas party. Imagine people being incarcerated or given a death sentence because the judge and the prosecutor went to the same Christmas party and they don't want to incriminate each other for their misconduct.. The personal finances of all judges and DAs should be checked annually for any inconsistencies. Every judge and DA should have their religion clearly declared when dealing with the public. In the 1976 case Imbler v. Pachtman , the Supreme Court ruled that under federal civil rights law, prosecutors also enjoy absolute immunity from any lawsuit over any action undertaken as a prosecutor. The American legal system is by no means perfect. Minorities are disproportionately discriminated against in policing and prosecution, and the rich can pay for attorneys that can find a loophole in a knotted thread. It just seems that the more deeply you're involved in the wrong, the more likely you are to be immune. The federal courts have built a formidable legal moat around recompense for the wrongly imprisoned - and around indirect accoutability for the prosecutors who put them away. The part that always amazes me is these people do not care about the rest of us. They lack empathy for most people and I believe this comes about thru they become corrupted by power. In the meantime, Marian T. Ryan has blood on her hands in the case of Jared Remy and did not seem to care. (Another story on Remy). She initially had the arrogance to say: but after a few state representatives asked for her resignation, she rounded up a couple of friends to investigate her office. I can predict (20130826) that after some time has passed, her buddies will say that this mistake was made due to poor training and that this will never ever happen again (Nyuck! Nyuck!). If this woman had any level of personal integrity, she would have resigned. She doesn't have any integrity and she won't resign. In my case, not having to respond to citizen complaints on the misconduct of her staff is the epitomy of (and apparently, the privileges of) being a queen bitch! It would not surprise me, if, once she was selected as Middlesex DA, that she stopped reading law books and legal opinions.

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