Uh-uh-uh! Love and forensics don’t mix!
TV writer and producer Steven Bochco, in “Hill Street Blues” and subsequent creations, liked to show the justice system flourishing despite every segment of it having romances and sex with every other segment: judges sleeping with lawyers, associates sleeping with partners, police officers having sex with defense attorneys, paralegals boinking supervising attorneys…oh, the combinations were endless. David Kelley, he of “The Practice,” “Boston Legal” and “Ally McBeal,” took the theme to new heights and depths, and “The Good Wife” has ploughed some new ground—sex with investigators!—too.
It doesn’t work, you know. None of it. These all create conflicts of interest, and are either ethical breaches or the doorway to them. Mustn’t have sex where you have a duty to seek justice rather than nookie.
Now from California comes news of another unfortunate coupling. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has moved to dismiss a 1989 cold case homicide of Cathy Zimmer, filed earlier this year against her husband and his brother. It seems that the prosecutor originally assigned to the case had “an undisclosed and improper relationship” with the case’s forensic lab technician. This is the kind of thing you would see if Steven Bochco wrote “CSI.”
District Attorney Jeff Rosen explained: “We have an absolute and ethical duty to enforce the laws in a just and objective manner and without regard to sympathy, bias or prejudice for or against any particular party. We offer our deepest apologies to the family of the victim, but based on the totality of the circumstances, we simply cannot proceed without taking the time to reexamine and reevaluate the case in order to ensure we have not violated the rights of the accused, nor compromised the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
I assume—I hope—that there isn’t as much cross-pollinating in the labs, law firms, courtrooms and police precincts as Hollywood seems to think.
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Pointer and Source: ABA Journal
Ethics Alarms 
Jack:
Help me understand this apology. Is he apologizing to the family for the conflict of interest that jeopardized the public perception of the entire judicial system or is apologizing for the fact that he is unwilling to take the time to reexamine and reevaluate the case. Does the move to dismiss mean that the case will not be reexamined?
“We offer our deepest apologies to the family of the victim, but based on the totality of the circumstances, we simply cannot proceed without taking the time to reexamine and reevaluate the case in order to ensure we have not violated the rights of the accused, nor compromised the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
It means, according to some other news reports, that the case may be the source of a charge yet (no statute of limitations for murder), but that since the conflict probably means the forensic (including DNA) evidence is toast, at this point, there isn’t enough evidence to convict, and may never be.
I’ve always suspected that Hamilton Burger and Della Street were carrying on right under Perry Mason’s nose! They say that fiction reflects reality. In this day and age, you have to wonder how much fiction impresses itself on reality. From what I’ve seen in a broad variety of situations, it does so to an chilling degree… and with so-called adults.
Art imitates life, and life returns the favor.
You are absolutely correct. As a police academy instructor, I know that many of our recruits see nothing wrong with, and seem oblivious to the perils of, such conduct. We teach the personal and professional hazards of “occupational incest” and improper fraternization, but (other than explaining likely consequences) what chance does a 10-week police academy have against a couple of decades of exposure to the popular culture?