Conflict of interest between a judge and attorney in a jury trial?
I was recently dismissed as a prospective juror from a DUI case in California. Afterwards, I googled the judge, deputy DA, and defense attorney. It turns out that the judge and one of the lawyers graduated from the same law school in the same year (back in the 1970's). Given that a lot of prospective jurors were dismissed [I'm guessing here] for various conflicts of interest such as family members working in law enforcement or family members with past DUI convictions, how high do alumni connections rate as a conflict of interest in jury trials?
Anonymous2007-07-08T18:53:41Z
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Not an issue. A conflict is a situation which would make the judge lean towards one lawyer more than the other, or circumstances that would make people wonder if that would happen. One of my law partners is married to a judge. It's a big firm and her husband doesn't know me and never met me but to prevent the appearance of impropriety, the judge will recuse himself (get off the case and have it assigned to another judge) if anyone in our firm is involved in case that comes into his division. When you work in a profession, you will get to know the judges - whether it's because you use the same gym, went to the same college, your kids are in the same school, etc. and there is nothing inappropriate about it.
Almost none at all, since in a state like Texas with a couple of law schools, a high percentage of any group of lawyers will be from the same school and judges are drawn from lawyers. More important to me is the fact that the judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys all have gone through the prosecutors office and the Dallas prosecutors office has had some attitudes that have nothing to do with justice and a lot to do with re-election. The Thin Blue Line and failure to pick up on DNA testing are some of the results.
Where the state is the plaintiff, and the Judge and prosecutor get money from the state deposited into the prosecutor's and Judge's pension fund, wouldn't that be a "Conflict of Interest" Prime example is Child Support. States get 66% matching funds for every dollar the court awards the non-custodial parent. The state deposits a % of those funds into the Judge's and Prosecutor's pension funds. That's a conflict of interest is it not?
Yes. It is very rare, but when evidence comes up showing actual innocence, most prosecutors will move to dismiss rather than waiting for the jury to acquit. A judge, in most places, has no such authority as that would allow the judiciary to determine whether to go forward with a charge and that power is reserved to the executive branch.
As a California resident, let me say "thank you"! You are so passionate about your right to sit on a jury, when so many others are trying to get out of it! We need people like you!
But as for your question, no it's not a conflict of interest. They just know each other, maybe. But they could have met anywhere, or been on a case together before, or sat next to each other at a bar association dinner. That doesn't mean they would be in cahoots or have any bias at all.