Ratko Mladic war crimes trial plunged into confusion

"The Hague war crimes tribunal, already under fire for its slow pace in dealing with Balkan war crimes cases, was thrown into confusion on Thursday by the revelation that lawyers prosecuting the Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic had failed to turn over hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence to the defence.

The Dutch judge, Alphons Orie, said the mistake would lead to a delay in the trial, which lawyers were already predicting would last four years or more.

"The chamber is still in the process of gathering information of the scope and full impact of this error," Orie said."  The Guardian

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This does not surprise me at all.  In several years of participating as an expert witness in criminal trials in federal and state courts as well  as "habeas corpus" hearings in federal courts I have seen prosecutors do this over and over again.  

It seems that the temptation to cheat the process and try a defendant on evidence he has not seen before the courtroom confrontation is overwhelming.  An additional "technique" used by prosecutors is to declare that some evidence is so sensitive that the defense team and the defendant cannot be shown it.  This is now prevalent in Americans national security cases.  In one pending case, the Justice Department attempted to have witnesses testify without identification and in disguise.  This case is still before a circuit court of appeals.  pl

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/17/ratko-mladic-war-crimes-trial-chaos

Comments

[Medicine Man]

War criminal or not, doesn't this violate the principle of being allowed to confront your accusers?

[Paul Deavereaux]

Ratko is no prize. A couple days ago he gave a throat-slitting hand signal to survivors of his butchery.. the court did not like it.

And yet all is not yet lost in the USA...

"An Obama-appointed judge rules its indefinite detention provisions likely violate the 1st and 5th Amendments"

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/federal_court_enjoins_ndaa/singleton/

All it might take is a US judge to stand up for the Constitution instead of rolling over to Authority. I hope her action emboldens other judges to stick to the Law instead of sticking it to the rest of us.

[The Twisted Genius]

Why prosecutors are so prone to this underhanded, despicable and often illegal behavior is beyond me. They are often the most vociferous opponents of allowing exculpatory evidence to surface that may free wrongly convicted people. They have no interest in justice, just winning. As much as I dislike mandatory sentencing guidelines, prosecutorial misconduct should carry hefty prison sentences... among the general prison population.

[Walrus]

AMEN!!

[confusedponderer]

Why prosecutors are so prone to this underhanded, despicable and often illegal behavior is beyond me. They are often the most vociferous opponents of allowing exculpatory evidence to surface that may free wrongly convicted people. They have no interest in justice, just winning.

You're witnessing the downside of for instance the iirc elected office of, say, a District Attorney (DA), being for many simply an opportunity to pad their résumés before launching their political careers.

A record of won cases, of having been 'tough on crime', helps. For public office in Texas a few death penalties won probably are a political necessity for a career in the Texas republican party. I may exaggerate a bit.

[turcopolier]

CP

Yes, you are distorting the facts. Justice Department career prosecutors are equally slippery in their treatment of "discovery," and there is no recourse to the ballot box against them. pl

[kao_hsien_chih]

This is a consequence the way Mladich and other "war criminals" have been so villified in the international press for so long (comparisons to another case of much less long term notoriety that has received much attention here of late will be deliberately ignored, although hinted at). Since the man is so "obviously guilty," the failure to convict him on the worst possible charges is unacceptable to those who set up this so-called international "criminal court."

I'm not defending Mladich: he is clearly not a "nice person." Still, "justice," to be recognized as such by all sides, means having the appropriate guidelines of behavior respected by all and followed by all, and so many prosecutors at all levels, having the power of the state, the victory, or false sense of "justice" (possibly emanating from the power and/or the victory), seem to feel free to ignore the procedures and rely on "public sentiment" to excuse their behavior.

This is disgraceful, and worse, fundamentally destructive to credibility of any "justice" founded upon such foundations.

[confusedponderer]

I am not so much distorting as I am expressing my distaste.

I was actually giving the US justice system the benefit of a doubt, with the idea in mind that career people are more honest because of career ethos ... alas: If there is no palpable difference between career prosecutors and elected ones - and since you have been there, and I haven't, I take your word for it - then it is something systemic to the justice system proper.

With America's veritable star chambers - with secrecy, secret evidence, unlimited detentions, extra-judicial killings, limited recourse and a hostile prosecutor and harsh punishment in general - America is probably heading towards a point at which they have to reconcile their ideals with the legal realities they face.

[Will]

it has been the law in this country for a while to turn over exculpating evidence to the defense. the prosecutors, so eager for a conviction sometimes fail to do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._Maryland

[Laura Collins]

There are hundreds or maybe thousands of techniques to be used by these prosecutors in order to solve a case. One of those is they will say and trick that some evidence is not to be shown by the defense team because of its sensitivity.