Prosecutorial misconduct
A government prosecutor subverting the fairness of a criminal proceeding -- through improper grand-jury conduct, withholding exculpatory evidence, or misleading jurors -- as found by a court or oversight body. It matters because prosecutorial fairness is a check the rule-of-law ideal depends on, independent of any partisan motive.
2026 Events (3)
ICE directed a Rhode Island prosecutor to conceal a homicide warrant from a federal court, and DHS branded the judge an 'activist'
On April 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose granted a habeas petition and ordered the release of immigration detainee Bryan Rafael Gomez, relying on the government's silence about any criminal history — silence that, an Assistant U.S. Attorney later admitted, came at ICE's direction, concealing that Gomez was wanted on an active homicide warrant in the Dominican Republic. Two days later, the Department of Homeland Security publicly branded Judge DuBose an "activist judge" over the release, without disclosing that its own agency had withheld the warrant information from her.
Interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith committed grand-jury misconduct in Wyoming case, calling defendants 'murderers'
On March 15, 2026, in Casper, Wyoming, interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith told a federal grand jury the nine defendants in a firearms, drug, and child pornography case were "bad guys" and "murderers" before any evidence was presented, said deliberations "won't take long," and passed out business cards inviting improper ex parte contact with jurors. Three federal judges later found the conduct "deeply concerning" and dismissed the resulting indictments without prejudice.
AG Bondi posted sealed booking photos of 16 Minnesota defendants in violation of a court sealing order
On January 28, 2026, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X the names and booking photos of 16 people arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area on federal charges of assaulting or impeding immigration officers, describing them as "rioters," while their cases remained under a federal court sealing order. Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster later found in one of the cases that Bondi's post "directly violated a court order sealing the case" and "thumbed its nose at the notion that defendants are innocent until proven guilty."
2023 Events (1)
Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth's office misstated drug-conspiracy law to jury in fentanyl trial
During Mohamed Abdulgani Ahmed's July 2023 trial on fentanyl-trafficking charges, Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth's office told jurors in closing argument that they did not need to find Ahmed knew the conspiracy involved drug quantities above the statutory first-degree threshold -- a misstatement of Minnesota conspiracy law. The jury convicted Ahmed on six counts, including first-degree conspiracy and sale, on July 12, 2023, in what was described as the largest fentanyl seizure in Polk County history. The error is part of a two-decade pattern of legally aggressive charging by Widseth, who has run unopposed in every county-attorney election since 2002.
2019 Events (1)
Orleans Parish DA extracted 2019 guilty plea from Elvis Brooks despite knowing it had withheld exculpatory fingerprint evidence
On October 15, 2019, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, then led by Leon Cannizzaro, secured a guilty plea from Elvis Brooks to a reduced manslaughter charge -- roughly two weeks after an internal meeting in which a prosecutor from Brooks's original 1977 trial admitted, per a memo Brooks's legal team later found, that fingerprint evidence excluding Brooks had never been turned over to the defense. A court vacated the plea and the underlying 1977 conviction in 2022 after finding the withholding, but the Louisiana Attorney General has since fought to reinstate the case and block Brooks's compensation claim.