Offense Issues: Illustrating the ethical and legal preparations required for successful prosecution of a case.

The two crimes I have chosen to outline the investigative and prosecutorial process of for a successful case would be those of Homicide and Rape. Technically speaking, the offense of Homicide is the unlawful yet unpremeditated voluntary killing of another, which might earn the convicted of such an offense a sentence greater than that of manslaughter (involuntary killing of another), yet lesser than that of murder (voluntary killing of another including premeditation). On the other hand, when a crime of Rape has been committed, it means that the victim was forcibly penetrated in a sexual manner without mutual consent. I’ll be speaking about the specific natures of the investigations of these crimes, the sensitivity that would be required of the investigator of these crimes, the nature of the prosecution upon the suspects of these crimes in a court of law setting, and including ethical considerations for the successful investigation and prosecution of cases where these two crimes occur.

1. What are the specific ethical considerations that need to be addressed when investigating the specific crime?

In the case of a homicide, extreme compassion and sympathy should be shown to the relatives and friends of the victim, who would likely be very upset that the victim was killed, and who might also act as witnesses and even informants for the case. For the investigation of a crime of rape, the investigator has to be very sensitive to the rape victim, understanding that they may be in a state of emotional shock, and to sensitively ask the victim for the information necessary to investigate the suspects, as well as for their testimony which may later be used as evidence when the trial goes to court. Furthermore, beyond the interviews and interrogations, an element of sensitivity must be in place for the collection, preservation, and transmission of evidence from the beginning of this process at the scene of the crime. Painstaking care must be taken to avoid the degradation or contamination of the evidence, not only in its collection, but also while transferring the evidence to the respective labs where it would be further analyzed by evidence specialists, including fingerprint technicians, forensic pathologists, and DNA specialists – especially the latter in regards to the analysis of biological evidence of a rape, including skin cells from under the victim’s fingernails, blood stains on their body from defending against the assailant, and semen residue collected at the hospital from within the victim’s bodily orifices. Also, the investigator’s ethics require that they keep their journal in an orderly way, in a careful chronological order, using pen ink as opposed to pencil to prevent the situation that occurs when it becomes apparent that incorrect assumptions had been erased, and the question arises as to whether the investigator’s notes had become tampered with where erasures are present, leaving them up for dispute as to whether they prove fully admissible as evidence in a court of law. To prevent this assumption from occurring, it would be wise for the investigator to simply cross out any errors with a single pen stroke, so the error can still be visible, then to simply write the correction to the right of the strikeout, not leaving any room for doubt that any information had been erased by the investigator in order to outfit the case in an untruthful manner.

2. How can we reduce the ethical problems involved in the investigation of the crimes you selected?

For homicide and rape cases, the suspects should of course be treated as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. They should not be coerced unduly for information, but should definitely be advised of their Miranda Warnings before the commencing of the interrogation, proving that they understand that any admission of guilt and/or testimony that they provide the investigator during the course of the interrogation can and will be used against them in a court of law, and also that they have the right to remain silent, and that they have the right to have an attorney present, even if they cannot afford one, as well as having the right to end the interview at any time once it has begun. In the case of a rape, the victim should not be distrusted, and their testimonial evidence should be treated as one step of continuing the case along the course toward the perpetrator’s eventual conviction. Any interplay between the victim and their parents – in the case of a child rape victim – should be monitored for any unusual signs, such as the child flinching whenever the parents make eye contact with them, or flinching when the parents gesture in the child’s direction, since it is a proven fact that many child rapes occur in the vicinity of the child’s own home. Often, investigators will have a child psychologist present at the scene of the interview, which may occur in the victim’s hospital room, in order to ensure that the child feels safe to inform the officer of what happened, and doesn’t feel intimidated because of the nature of the interview. On the other hand, some investigative units have officers specifically trained in child psychology, including female officers for the interviews of female victims and male officers for the interviews of male victims, to ensure that the utmost sensitivity is evidenced in regards to compassion and sympathy toward the rape victim at the time of interview.

3. What prosecution problems could arise when the case is presented for trial if the investigator was unethical?

If the investigator was unethical, a number of prosecution problems could arise. The prosecutor could file a pretrial motion for the suppression of charges, if he or she feels the charges were incorrect. Otherwise, for homicide, the prosecutor could strike up a plea bargain for the lessening of charges from that of homicide to that of manslaughter. In the case of rape, if the prosecutor finds that the investigator was unethical, he or she could state that the sexual contact was not rape, but was mutual, and the charges could be dropped, if the evidence were to point in such a direction. Regarding demographics, if the prosecutor of a homicide or rape case were to point to a suspect who had nothing to do with the case, simply because they were nearby and matched the demographic of a type who the investigator might have said would be more likely to have commit the crime simply because their racial or financial type matched that of a group which demographic statistics charts stated had been recently found guilty of having committed such crimes more so than other racial or financial groups, the investigator could be found guilty of fraud, unless they have credible evidence to back up their investigation of such a suspect. Matthew Bender states (Bender, p. 352), “Of all crime statistics, those on homicide are probably the most reliable. This is because two agencies of government -- the police and the medical examiner (or coroner) -- have jurisdiction, file separate reports, and compile data.” Just because crime statistics are reliable, however, would give an investigator no legal license to point to a suspect just because they match a demographic which ranks high among current perpetrators of such a crime, and not based on significant circumstantial evidence, including at least witness, victim, or informant testimonies, physical evidence, or documentary evidence (records) which would lead a jury to believe that the suspect was guilty of the crime, beyond seeing the suspect as being outfit based merely on statistical profiling.

4. What ethical issues are directly related to the prosecutor in the case?

In regards to the prosecutor of the case, a number of ethical issues exist in a similar way to the way that ethical issues play a part in the investigator’s job. Of course the defendant would be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, so the speech of the prosecutor should not be excessively biased in favor of the guilt of the defendant; the prosecutor’s statements and arguments should be limited to only the evidence at hand for the case at hand, and not clouded by the bias of preconceived notions in regard to the defendant. In the case of a homicide, the prosecutor would have to study all the evidence, and if the evidence is not complex, sophisticated, or clear enough to specifically point to the defendant as being the perpetrator of the crime beyond the shadow of a doubt, they may consider motioning for the judge to lessen the charges, or to suppress the charges altogether. In the case of a rape, on the other hand, the prosecutor should bear in mind, in a similar way that the case should only be prosecuted on the basis of the evidence at hand, and not prosecuted based on a personal bias against the defendant of the case. The prosecutor should restrain themselves to not pose questions that would put the defendant under double jeopardy, so as not to violate the defendant’s Fifth Amendment Rights. In this vein, they should allow enough space in their arguments for the defense attorney to have a chance to prove the evidence unsound, from the beginning of the trial to its closure. Furthermore, it is the ethical duty of the prosecutor to ensure that whatever evidence the investigator provides would be entirely relevant to the case at hand. For instance, Cliff Roberson states (Roberson, p. 261), “To identify logically irrelevant evidence, ask, “Does the evidence assist in proving the fact that one party is trying to prove?”; otherwise, the prosecutor may have to file a motion for the evidence to be dismissed as irrelevant to the case at hand.

References:

1. Criminal Investigation: A Method For Restructuring The Past, by Matthew Bender.

Copyright © 2007 Matthew Bender & Company, Inc.

Licensed to Kaplan University in Agreement with LexisNexis Anderson Publishing

2. Procedures in the Justice System, Eighth Edition, by Cliff Roberson, Harvey Wallace, and Gilbert B. Stuckey. Published by Prentice Hall.

Copyright © 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.