The Most Dangerous Power of the Prosecutor

Abstract

This was the James D. Hopkins Memorial Lecture, delivered at Pace Law School, October 25, 2008.

In preparing for this lecture, I reviewed some of my other lectures and writings over the past eight years. I wanted to see if the cases I will be discussing today were isolated events or part of a larger picture, to try to place the cases in some conceptual framework. I have concluded that these cases are not aberrations. They are not isolated deviations, disconnected from the legal and political abuses that have engulfed our nation these past eight years, particularly the abuses by the Executive Branch of our federal government, the erosion of the rule of law, and the threats to our civil liberties. There is a connection between these abuses and the specific topic I have assigned for my talk.