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Document Type

Book Section

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2015

Publication Title

The State of Criminal Justice 2015

Abstract

Several ethics issues in criminal advocacy came to the forefront again in 2014. Although the U.S. Supreme Court did not decide important cases that cut across criminal law and the ethical obligations of defense counsel or prosecutors in 2014, there were still several other important developments and stories in the news. For example, decisions of prosecutors in Missouri and New York that they did not have a conflict of interest in considering charges against police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both unarmed African America men, led to outcries of injustice and double-standards favoring police. In a surprise turn of events, Attorney General Eric Holder issued an order ending the practice of federal prosecutors requiring waivers of ineffective assistance of counsel claims as plea bargain requirement, after the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected attempts by U.S. Attorneys in Kentucky to have the court approve the waivers. During the course of 2014, three of the four Formal Ethics Opinions issued by the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility directly addressed issues affecting prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers. Several other criminal ethics issues surfaced in 2014, and we address many of them in this chapter.

Keywords

Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility, Criminal Justice, Criminal Procedure, Prosecutor Conflicts of Interest, Department of Justice, Miranda

Publication Citation

Peter A. Joy & Ellen Yaroshefsky, Ethics in Criminal Advocacy, in The State of Criminal Justice 2015 (Kelley, Elizabeth ed., 2015 ed.)

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