In Praise of a Prosecutor
What makes a bad prosecutor? It’s simple: Does the prosecutor’s longing for the public limelight, his aspirations for public office, come to overwhelm his dedication to justice, to simply doing the right thing? It’s said that a famous chief prosecutor from Dallas, Henry Wade, summed up the thinking that goes into a really bad prosecutor like this: “any prosecutor could convict a guilty man, but… it takes a real pro to convict an innocent man.”
Each year Bob Bennett, a former federal prosecutor who now heads his own litigation firm in Houston, Texas, publishes an invaluable list of the “ten worst prosecutors in the United States.” In the era of Bush, the competition to make the list has grown fierce. Last year, Bennett’s list was a sort of Bush-justice rogues gallery, starting with the world’s worst prosecutor, the disgraced (but still not indicted) former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It’s worth a read.
The Bush Administration has been a breeding grounds for this kind of abuse, stoking and rewarding it. But it’s worth remembering that there are honorable, dedicated, professional prosecutors at work, even in the Bush team—men like David Iglesias and David McKay, and women like Carol Lam. (They were all fired, of course.) And today’s Wall Street Journal brings an account of another prosecutor worthy of the name: Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. And if there’s one trait that Watkins brings to the job, it’s a dedication to justice and a determination to right the injustices of the long line of legendarily bad prosecutors who went before him–including Henry Wade.
