Withholding Evidence In Court Cases

When ethics and the law begin to mix, things start to get messy. In life ethics are a part of your moral compass; they are what you live by and they tell you what’s right from wrong. Currently in my city, there is a scandal going on that involves ethics and legality. Our district attorney, John Budelmann, was found to be withholding information from certain drug cases. As a prosecutor, you must provide the criminals with all evidence that they can use for their defense. Although if the prosecutors are not given full evidence by the district attorney, then the criminals cannot receive all the evidence to help them in their case. When his assistant district attorney, Jeffery Domachowski, found out Budelmann was withholding information, Budelmann fired him for not going along …show more content…
In many cases, because evidence was withheld, many of the defendants began to get overcharged. In one case a man was almost sent to prison for twenty-five years to life. To stop this, Domachowski didn’t obey Budelmann’s order to withhold evidence, and the man only got two years for acting as an agent in the drug deal. An agent being a less serious charge than an actual drug dealer, therefore they wouldn’t get as much time. It was found that in six other cases information that was withheld proved that the defendant was the agent and not the dealer. This was one of the first strikes Budelmann took against Domachowski for going against his orders. Domachowski then began to warn defense lawyers that Budelmann may not give them all the evidence needed to have a true case. Budelmann decided that this was the last straw and made Domachowski resign in June. Budelmann had said he fired Domachowski for his own ethical misconduct, but Budelmann did not release what that was about. Now, Domachowski is coming out and making it known that what Budelmann is doing is not