District Attorneys, Discretion, and Dialouge: How the Culture of a Prosecutor's Office Frames the Relationship Between Superiors and Subordinates
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Authors
O'Meara, Gregory J.
Issue Date
2018-09
Volume
51
Issue
4
Type
Journal Article
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Failings in legal reasoning echo the failings of the Enlightenment project. The Creighton Law Review asked me to address the relationship between superiors and subordinates in a legal ethics context. In this paper, I consider how this question arose in one of the Oklahoma City Bombing cases. I focus on the Oklahoma State prosecution of Terry Nichols, one of Timothy McVeigh’s two co-conspirators, which followed Nichols’ federal conviction for conspiracy and manslaughter. I selected this case because eighteen years ago I testified as an expert witness for the defense on the issue of prosecutorial misconduct, and the decision of the appellate court continues to puzzle me years later. This essay examines an unpublished pretrial ruling by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on a petition for a Writ of Mandamus filed by Mr. Robert Macy, the Oklahoma City District Attorney. The trial court barred Mr. Macy from the case for professional misconduct and also barred his entire office under a theory of vertical imputation, pursuant to Model Rules of Professional Conduct (“Model Rules”), rule 1.10.
Description
Citation
51 Creighton L. Rev. 729 (2017-2018)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law