21 September 2009

Why do people become prosecutors?

From D.A.: Prosecutors in Their Own Words by Mark Baker:

"As one former prosecutor who is now a judge reasoned at the beginning of her career, 'I figured as a D.A., if you did your job and the person was guilty, the person went to jail. If you did a bad job and the person was guilty, the person got off. However, if you were in Legal Aid and you did a bad job, somebody went to jail. I figured it wasn't a good idea to represent people and risk them going to jail because of my inexperience.'"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

as a current (and rather inexperienced) public defender, I must say this same thought has occurred to me from time to time, as a reason to prefer a job as a prosecutor. other reasons include (clearly) better pay and (allegedly) easier case prep.

of course in this economy there are no prosecutor jobs to be had...