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December 3, 2014
ThinkProgress: How One Woman Could Hit The Reset Button In The Case Against Darren Wilson
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/02/3598082/one-woman-could-appoint-a-special-prosecutor-and-bring-justice-to-ferguson/<snip>
There is a provision of Missouri Law MO Rev Stat § 56.110 that empowers the court having criminal jurisdiction to appoint some other attorney to prosecute if the prosecuting attorney be interested. (The term be interested is an awkward legal way to refer to conflict-of-interest or bias. The statute dates from the turn of the 20th century.)
The court with jurisdiction over Darren Wilsons case is the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri. That means the power to appoint a special prosecutor is held by Maura McShane, the Presiding Judge of the 21st Circuit.
Missouri courts, at times, have interpreted their power to appoint a special prosecutor broadly, to include not only blatant conflicts like the prosecutor being related to the defendant but also subtler conflicts that reveal themselves through the prosecutors conduct in the case.
In the 1996 case of State v. Copeland, a Missouri court replaced the prosecutor because the judge sensed that [the prosecutors] sympathies for [the defendant] may have prevented him from being an effective advocate for the state. The judge found the adversarial process to have broken down in that [the prosecutor] appeared to be advocating the defendants position.
<snip>
There is a provision of Missouri Law MO Rev Stat § 56.110 that empowers the court having criminal jurisdiction to appoint some other attorney to prosecute if the prosecuting attorney be interested. (The term be interested is an awkward legal way to refer to conflict-of-interest or bias. The statute dates from the turn of the 20th century.)
The court with jurisdiction over Darren Wilsons case is the 21st Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri. That means the power to appoint a special prosecutor is held by Maura McShane, the Presiding Judge of the 21st Circuit.
Missouri courts, at times, have interpreted their power to appoint a special prosecutor broadly, to include not only blatant conflicts like the prosecutor being related to the defendant but also subtler conflicts that reveal themselves through the prosecutors conduct in the case.
In the 1996 case of State v. Copeland, a Missouri court replaced the prosecutor because the judge sensed that [the prosecutors] sympathies for [the defendant] may have prevented him from being an effective advocate for the state. The judge found the adversarial process to have broken down in that [the prosecutor] appeared to be advocating the defendants position.
<snip>
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