Magna Carta News
Friday, August 29, 2003
Washington Prosecutorial Misconduct
A study of criminal appeals from 1970 to the present revealed 244 Washington state cases in which the defendant alleged prosecutorial error or misconduct. In 18, judges ruled a prosecutor’s conduct prejudiced the defendant and reversed or remanded the conviction, sentence or indictment. In two, a dissenting judge or judges thought the prosecutor’s conduct prejudiced the defendant.
Out of the 18 cases in which judges ruled the prosecutor’s conduct prejudiced the defendant, 15 involved improper trial behavior, two involved discrimination in jury selection and one involved a prosecutor withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense.
In 1998, the state appeals court reversed Melvin Copeland’s rape conviction because Cowlitz County Prosecuting Attorney Susan Baur withheld evidence from the defense.
In September 1995, a jury convicted Copeland for second-degree rape. In November 1995, Copeland’s defense discovered that the victim had been convicted of theft in Cowlitz County during 1993. Copeland’s defense counsel filed an appeal with the state appeals court alleging that Baur withheld evidence of the victim’s theft conviction.
“The record of [victim’s] Cowlitz County criminal conviction for theft, which occurred only two years before Copeland’s trial, was within the possession and control of the Cowlitz County Prosecuting Attorney’s office,” wrote Justice Carroll Bridgewater in the opinion that reversed Copeland’s conviction. “The deputy prosecutor’s action of failing to disclose [the victim’s] theft conviction constituted misconduct, regardless of the fact that such a failure may have been inadvertent.”
Baur told the Center she did not intentionally withhold evidence from the defense. Instead, she said, she did not think to search records to see if the victim had prior convictions. She said the published decision reversing Copeland’s conviction changed the manner in which prosecutors in her office handled discovery.
“It woke us up as prosecutors,” Baur said. “It makes perfect sense; it’s just something I didn’t do.”
