Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller writes, "Nogales prosecutors call out federal agent."
You can imagine how this story might have ended.The defendant, Eduardo Bojorquez, would have been convicted, by a jury or through a guilty plea, and sentenced to prison. Nobody would have been the wiser about how the conviction was won.
And:
A couple of young prosecutors, relatively recent graduates of the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law, saw something wrong: a federal agent who they thought had lied about the case. Rather than working things out behind the scenes, they blew the whistle.
Assistant Santa Cruz County Attorney Vanessa Cartwright, who grew up in Tucson and graduated from the law school in 2007, alerted her boss, Liliana Ortega, the chief deputy overseeing criminal cases, a 1998 UA law grad. They are two of just nine attorneys in the office, in a town that is practically fed-ville — home to hundreds and hundreds of federal agents.
On Sept. 16, Ortega wrote a jarring letter to the man in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations office in Nogales:
“One issue is the case agent’s late disclosure of a surveillance video showing Mr. Bojorquez involved in the drug smuggling offense. Although this video existed since 2009, the agent did not make it available for viewing until August of 2013, a few weeks before trial. This late disclosure, if not intentional, was at minimum grossly negligent on Agent (Eduardo) Cota’s part.”
“More disturbing was the content of the video. The video directly contradicted statements that Agent Cota made to the prosecutor, to defense counsel and in the agent’s own reports. The agent also omitted vital information from the reports and from his discussions with the prosecutor that would have impacted the filing of charges against Mr. Bojorquez.”
"AZ: Santa Cruz Prosecutors Show Us How It’s Done," is the Open File blog post.
A heartening story out of Arizona has emerged in the midst of Michael Kiefer’s four-part series for The Arizona Republic on prosecutors who commit misconduct and suffer few, if any, consequences. Tim Stellar, opinion columnist for The Arizona Daily Star, recently tipped his hat to two county prosecutors who not only forsook a conviction in order to play by the rules, but held their colleagues to account in the process.
Concluding his excellent series on prosecutorial misconduct which profiled numerous prominent Arizona prosecutors who have not only failed to abide by their ethical duties, but have seemingly been rewarded for them with notoriety and promotions in many instances, Kiefer discussed what, if any, avenues there are to punish unethical prosecutors.
The Arizona Republic series on prosecutorial misconduct begins at the link.
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