# A DA is not a "cop"



## Rock (Mar 20, 2005)

Don't know where this author got his info but sounds to me like he's just spewing opinion and passing it on as fact.

"A DA is not a cop"

*A DA is not a "cop"
*One reason we give the police investigative powers is because normally it is neither to their advantage nor disadvantage to report what they find. Cops, in fact, are not supposed to care if any case is won or lost. That is why no DA's office should be involved with the gathering of evidence.
The interest of any DA in political advancement, is also in conflict with investigative neutrality.
The DA's office is political, not infrequently a stop on the way to higher position. The DA thus has every incentive to bend the truth to create "justice" that serves him politically. Prosecutors are supposed to take the facts as given them by law enforcement, and build cases to convict people. A prosecutor cannot be an investigator. That puts the two interests of (a) an impartial search for facts, and (b) winning cases into direct conflict. The interest of any DA in political advancement, is also in conflict with investigative neutrality.


----------



## cc3915 (Mar 26, 2004)

I was assigned to a "CPAC" before and always had a problem with the police (in this state, mostly MSP) being *assigned to and working for* the DA's office. You can't serve two masters. I can understand calling on a prosecutor for advice in a homicide invest, but for them to totally take over every aspect is ridiculous. Let the cops be cops and do the investigation until it's time for prosecution, then give what what they have to the DA and let them work with the evidence that's presented to build a case.

More than once, I saw totally qualified and experienced "CPAC" commanders or supervisosrs transferred out of the unit when a new DA was elected and "his guys" were put in place.


----------



## Guest (Jul 13, 2011)

Rock said:


> Don't know where this author got his info but sounds to me like he's just spewing opinion and passing it on as fact.


Well, it's an editorial, so of course it's opinion. That's pretty much the definition of an editorial.

Also, the writer raises some (IMO) valid points; in my experience, *the* district attorney (the elected head honcho) very rarely, if ever, gets directly involved in an investigation, but there are examples of disastrous consequences when they do......look no further than Michael Nifong's railroading of the Duke University lacrosse players back in 2006.

As far as the title "A DA is not a cop", I also have to agree; our district attorney is a former state senator who has a very lucrative private law practice (sound familiar?) who ran for DA (IMO) solely to pad his pension. Three years in Group 4 at an over $100K salary will boost his pension about 3X what it was if he retired as a senator. I'll bet the house he does one term, "retires", then goes back to his private law practice.

Show me a DA who works nights, weekends, holidays, who has to carry a gun & wear a vest, who has to fight with people on a regular basis and who has to deal directly with the scum of the Earth every day, and then I might object to that statement.


----------



## csauce777 (Jan 10, 2005)

In my experience in San Diego, the SD County DA's office hires "DA Investigators" who are peace officers and essentially follow up on criminal cases prior to trial and some conduct other investigations as assigned (fraud, embezzlement, etc). It gives the DA's office a separate investigative arm besides the police.


----------



## Rock (Mar 20, 2005)

Suffolk County has civilian criminal investigators in superior and district courts.


----------



## cc3915 (Mar 26, 2004)

Rock said:


> Suffolk County has civilian criminal investigators in superior and district courts.


No more Troopers? In the early 90's Suffolk didn't have a CPAC. They depended on the now defunct MSP "Major Crime Unit" to do the homicide invests in Revere, Chelsea, Winthrop and on state property in Boston. It actually worked out very well that way. They don't use these civilians for homicide invests.....do they????


----------



## 7costanza (Aug 29, 2006)

> DA is not a "cop"


Tell that to Coakley.


----------



## Rock (Mar 20, 2005)

cc3915 said:


> No more Troopers? ................They don't use these civilians for homicide invests.....do they????


Yes they still use Troopers and they do the bulk of the investigative work. They also have at least one or two (at least they used to) civilians assigned to each unit including Homicide. They fill in the gaps where BPD or MSP leave off. They mostly deal with victims and witnesses. I've never known them to deal with the defendant/suspect/shitbird.


----------



## Guest (Jul 13, 2011)

Rock said:


> Suffolk County has civilian criminal investigators in superior and district courts.


The AG's Office has (or had as of several years ago) the same thing.


----------



## cc3915 (Mar 26, 2004)

Delta784 said:


> The AG's Office has (or had as of several years ago) the same thing.


I don't believe these investigators are cops. DA's aren't cops either. They should leave the police work to the real police and concentrate on what they're trained for and that's in the courtroom.


----------



## Edmizer1 (Aug 27, 2006)

"Re: A DA is not a "cop" Suffolk County has civilian criminal investigators in superior and district courts."

Didn't one of State Senator Dianne Wilkerson's sons who is a criminal get one of these criminal investigator jobs a few years ago. Even the Boston Globe questioned his appointment and put his BOP in the paper. I'm not sure how widely used they are.​


----------



## Rock (Mar 20, 2005)

No, you're thinking of something else.


----------



## firefighter39 (Apr 10, 2006)

I alwsy thought that *"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders."*


----------



## NEPS (Aug 29, 2006)

There are many states that formally assign law enforcement agents to work directly for the prosecutor. I see pros and cons to this.

Prosecutors are often, though not everywhere, political entities. In some states district prosecutors are appointed, not elected. Even amongst those who are elected, it is not impossible for a prosecutor to just want to do a good job. Prosecutors are responsible for the professional presentation of a criminal case. In over two decades as a cop, I have learned that police officers do not always present such a case to the prosecutor. It is no surprise to me that prosecutors might value the services of a law enforcement officer who is directly accountable for performance in a professional manner to the prosecutor when the prosecutor needs a case tightened up. Just because the prosecutor might have a bias towards winning a prosecutirion does not mean that a prosecutor will act in accordance with that bias.

And local or state cops are not necessarily without bias and certainly are not always professional. Look at what happened to several homicide and, perhaps, many drug cases in Boston because of police incompetence or corruption. (And I don't mean to pick on Boston. If it were published, you could say the same thing about many cities and towns.)

I don't see prosecutor's police as such a horrible thing. It can be good or bad. It all depends on the integrity of the people who are involved, but that is exactly the same as with local or state police officers.

---------- Post added at 01:18 ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 ----------

Regarding Dianne Wilkerson, for whom I have no use, here is a quot from a Boston Globe column in 2006. Judge it as you will:

"Two weeks later, as if to explain what the beef was, someone tipped the _Boston Globe_ to the fact that Cornell Mills had been hired by Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley as a civilian investigator despite having been arrested at least four times. Sounds bad, right? But at least five of the 279 employees in the DA's office had arrest records; none of Cornell Mills's arrests had led to convictions; and there was no evidence that Conley had been pressured by Wilkerson to hire her son, or that Cornell was unqualified."


----------



## csauce777 (Jan 10, 2005)

NEPS said:


> Prosecutors are responsible for the professional presentation of a criminal case. In over two decades as a cop, I have learned that police officers do not always present such a case to the prosecutor.


I don't have anywhere near two decades on this job, but I'm pretty sure I can speak for most of my friends on the job when I say that more often than not, the ADA's in our courts seek to clear the dockets the easiest and most painless way possible, without regard for how good of a case they are presented. There are countless excellently prepared cases everyday in our courts here that are CWOF or DISM
because the system encourages not only efficient plea bargaining, but outright brooming of cases to avoid actually holding people accountable. THAT'S the reason people walk around with double and triple digit BOP's and few have done any real jail time.

When a robbery (for example) committed by a repeat criminal is plead down to a larceny or receiving stolen, and disposed with 6 months probation and court costs, is that really in the best interest of the public? Why not try the case? So he gets a NG, so what? He wasn't doing time with the plea anyway.


----------

