Reluctant Discipline

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Jack King, Director of Public Affairs
202-872-8600, media@nacdl.com

Reluctant Discipline

When it was discovered that senior Justice Department prosecutor William Lynch had withheld evidence from defendants which completely undercut the credibility of the government's star witness, defense counsel Gerson Horn of Beverly Hills, CA, outlined numerous statements that the witness had made under oath at his own trial which were diametrically opposed to his sworn testimony. At that point, U.S. District Judge James Ideman, in U.S. v. Isgro, (D.C. Cal 1990), dismissed the case. In his dismissal order, Judge Ideman said, "The court has not the slightest doubt that the government at all times was familiar with the content of [the witness's] prior testimony. They kept if from the grand jury for the same reason they kept it from the [defense]. They feared the devastating effect it could have had on [the witness's] credibility. Having been caught with a smoking pistol, the government, having previously denied that it had a pistol, denied that it smoked." Judge Ideman then filed a complaint about Lynch's ethical conduct with the Justice Department's internal Office of Professional Responsibility, urging further investigation and appropriate response.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit observed that the prosecutor's misconduct rose to an "intolerable level" and recommended, in a published opinion, that the "Attorney General . . . examine the conduct of Mr. Lynch to consider whether or not he should be subject to departmental discipline." A cursory inquiry by OPR found there was insufficient evidence that Lynch intentionally withheld the exculpatory evidence to warrant disciplinary action, and referred the matter to an Assistant Attorney General who sent Lynch a mere letter of reprimand in May 1994 -- some four years after the misconduct and Judge Ideman's complaint.

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