...how often prosecutors have been found to have intentionally withheld evidence in a case? And how does one statistically connect that to undetected instances of unethical conduct? I ask because in many of the posts related to this article on the Duke case and in the article itself, the sweeping generalization that "lots" of prosecutors behave like Nifong "all the time" seems to be a predominant theme. However, no one seems to have any hard numbers to back this up, other than the author's brief mention of the number of cases he or someone else found with any allegation by the defense of any form of prosecutoral misconduct. This is not to say that prosecutoral misconduct does not occur and that it should not be addressed. But it's hard to address the problem without a somewhat empirical, non-hysterical assessment of what the nature and scope of the problem is. And it seems to be a logical fallacy to simple assume that because some prosecutors conduct themselves unethically that most prosecutors must therefore conduct themselves unethically.

The problem is that when a person with unquestioned authority abuses that authority, it's really difficult to uncover. So, don't hold your breath on this kind of empirical evidence. Ultimately, it's up to our judiciary to do the job.

The only way to get the stats you are asking about is to catch them doing it. That's going to leave out all the times (probably most of them) that they got away with it.

I don't know why the author didn't link to the cited study -- it's at the Center for Public Integrity's Harmful Error page... You can view the nationwide numbers by state... In fairness to the Slate contributor I don't think it's meant to implicate "most" prosecutors in most cases -- rather, the implication is that most prosecutors in cases of alleged sexual assault tend to push the envelope.

n.b. it's reasonable to assume that the study undercounts -- by a very large amount -- the occurences since the only data set they have to work with is of cases that went to trial...

You are absolutely right that I should have included the link. Sorry, it was an oversight. To help out further, here is the link to the Chicago Tribune Series. <link> Best, David

try this one

<link>

[ "critic-rim" got hyphenated in you original rely... ]