Who suffers when a prosecutor is cited for misconduct?
By Steve Weinberg WASHINGTON, June 26, 2003 — When Larry Johnson walked out of a Missouri prison during the summer of 2002, exonerated by DNA testing from a wrongful rape conviction after avowing his innocence for 18 years, St. Louis legal community insiders nodded knowingly as word trickled out who had led the prosecution back in 1984—Nels C. Moss Jr. Moss, assistant circuit attorney for the city of St. Louis and later a trial prosecutor in neighboring St. Charles County, earned a well-deserved reputation as an aggressive, effective trial prosecutor. During his 33 years of trying cases for the people, however, he simultaneously was a recidivist breaker of the rules by which prosecutors are supposed to operate. After joining the St. Louis city prosecutor’s office in 1968, Moss found his conduct formally challenged in at least 24 cases. In seven of those, judges reversed the conviction, declared a mistrial or issued some other ruling adverse to the prosecution. Over the course of his ca
Related Questions
- Would it be possible to speak with the Bentonville City Prosecutor regarding my being arrested or cited for a misdemeanor crime in the City of Bentonville, prior to my first appearance in court?
- If a ship approaching the dock suffers a mechanical malfunction and releases fuel to the environment, what is the contingency plan?
- That doesn’t sound like justice; why doesn’t the prosecutor just do the trials?
