POLICE, PROSECUTORS, SEX, PRIVACY AND ONE'S DUTY AS AN OFFICER OF THE COURT

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This story lacks detail but this model is more common than you might think and a serious headache for executive prosecutors.

One of my best students at Prosecutors' School was a young woman from another state. A very talented lawyer and a beautiful person in every way, she was a naturalized citizen, appreciated everything about her adopted land and really just wanted to fight crime and uphold the rights of victims.

We kept in touch as her career took off. She was promoted from division to division, from Department Head to Chief Assistant. She tried the hard cases. Nobody knew, or so she thought, that she was deeply involved with a Detective Sergeant whose reputation for integrity was a little on the loose side.

The inevitable happened, the perfect storm of professional undoing. First, she was trying one of his cases, in which his conduct was the entire issue (It had to do with how he gained access to a third party house and found a bloody footprint in a murder case). Of course, my friend stood up for her case and the integrity of the Sgt. Problem number one was that he was lying and there were two other officers who had information that tended to prove it. Problem number two was that the Sgt.'s ex had decided to hire a private detective to determine who was living in the house where her kids had visitation. Icky photographs resulted.

After the hearing was over (and the evidence was ruled inadmissible) the ex shared what she knew with my former student's boss. My student did what employees often do when confronted with inconvenient facts. She lied. The Boss investigated. He valued her, he said, but the evidence was overwhelming. He could help her if she told him the truth. She did. She'd been involved with the guy for a couple of years. She maintained her own place but just went there about once a week to get the mail. She truly believed his version of the truth and was just duped, not participating in any attempt to fool the court.

I think he believed her, as I did when she told me this story after the fact.

She was demoted to the lowest paying position on the felony side--and was grateful to still be serving the people. Usually when the former Chief is working for the people she supervised, the chemistry is bad. This lady is so genuinely nice, there were no problems in her new role.

She broke up with the Sgt. and moved back to her own place. That was not the end of it. Eventually there was an investigation by the State's licensing authority and she was suspended for six months for "CUBA". By policy, the prosecutor's office then had to fire her.

She never returned to the practice of law after her relatively brief suspension. She works in an animal rescue facility. Washing dogs, however noble, is an underutilization of her considerable skills and intellect. I suspect it is her way of both serving and doing penance.

When young lawyers are entering the prosecutor's office, either gender, I remind them "Prosecutors don't date cops or other prosecutors." For some reason, there's not as much headache over prosecutors dating defense lawyers but there's risk in that one, too.

It sounds like the chief prosecutor in the Story linked used his mercy and his judgment. I hope all the (particularly young) lawyers viewing the story learn from it.