Page 26 - Jon Casey News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

was but the case never went anywhere. so i had all of these stories and went to the clerk to have court and she is a woman named miss wiggs. she has a helmet of white hair and bright blue eyes and a plain talking way of speaking. i said what is going on here and she said you want to know what's going on? i'll tell you. she points to this list above her besk and now these are lists, names of defendants who have been changed with a crime in lower court in the justice court and they have been bound over to the circuit court for the prosecutor to bring to grand jury. by law in mississipp...

violence case in 20 years. there are these patterns that we can't see or know because under the guise of discretion and they don't have to make it public, and if you lived in the county, all right, you might know, i know somebody who was beaten up but the case didn't go anywhere, nobody put together these patterns. that's one of the great meanings of ordinary justice. >> john, do you know miss wiggs? >> new york city but i wish i did. -- no, but i wish i did. i remember reading somewhere a few years ago that a prosecutor had never been disbarred. i think that changed this year. there...

prosecutors. and the role that prosecutors play in justice. prosecutors as we know have a tremendous amount of power. they have the ability to decide who to charge or when not to charge. what were some of the things that you noticed or found about prosecutor offices in your book and then i'm going ask john to talk about what his study shows in terms of what prosecutors are doing right and what they are doing wrong. >> well, prosecutors pretty much have unfair discretion to decide what to prosecute and whatnot to prosecute. and i had gone to a county in mississippi and i got there bec...

and this case has resolved itself, i don't think you should indict but it is people who have to decide what gets to court and what doesn't get to court. she said here i have 80 people on this list and when we came to court on the other day there was almost nobody there. people call me all the time and tell me horrible things that have happened to them and their children. their kids were molested. they were beaten up. someone was arrested yet the crime never goes anywhere. i asked her if i could use the list as a road map to see what was going on in the county. so i copied it and star...

you know, when prosecutors abuse their power, they, you know, kind of like put their thumb on the scales of justice. the playing field is no longer level. it is clearly in the prosecutor's favor and their abuse and unethical and unconstitutional behavior really stems from a culture that is about getting a conviction. you know, it is easy to point at cases where misconduct is blatant and evident. i think we have to take a look at all misconduct and abuse that occurs. when you talk about transparency, that's downtown transparency in a prosecutor's -- the best counter to transparency in...