DOJ Suspends Prosecutors for Failure to Disclose

The Department of Justice is known for seeking harsh punishments against businessmen, but what does it do when it comes time to punish one of its own for recklessly exposing another person to disaster? Does it emulate that fictional icon of devotion to legal justice who said:

I have often been severe in the course of my life towards others. That is just. I have done well. Now, if I were not severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not myself! Why, I should be a blackguard! Those who say, `That blackguard of a Javert!' would be in the right. . . . I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. (Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, I.vi.1)

Apparently not.

DOJ found that two of its prosecutors had been reckless in the case against Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). From White Collar Crime Prof Blog :

The determined "reckless" conduct was, among other things, the failure to disclose evidence concerning Stevens' willingness to pay for the renovations in question, and a contractor's expectation that the cost of the renovations would be added to Stevens' bill, evidence central to the case.  Its disclosure might well have prevented Stevens' conviction, loss of reputation and Senate seat, and (but for his death in a plane crash) probable imprisonment.

The punishment: suspension. That's right: a stock trader trades without disclosing information that would undercut his advantage, and the DOJ wants him to get a sentence longer than an average murderer's . A prosecutor turns a man's life upside down without disclosing information that could save his target's freedom and reputation, and the DOJ gives him some unpaid vacation.

The good of the service -- and of everyone at risk of being prosecuted by the DOJ, guilty or innocent -- demanded an example. This wasn't it.

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