Fighting for Transparency in the Prosecutorial Misconduct Complaint Process in New York
Civil Rights Corps v. LaSalle (previously CRC v. Pestana)
In response to the filing of the first Accountability NY complaints in 2021, NYC Corporate Counsel sent a letter to the Grievance Committees claiming that the professors had engaged in “misuse and indeed abuse of the grievance process” that “should not be countenanced.”
In November 2021, we filed a federal lawsuit (then called CRC v. Pestana) and won a big victory for transparency in June 2022, when the court granted our motion for partial summary judgment. The Southern District of New York court ruled, “The First Amendment prohibits a state from banning complainants from publishing their own attorney grievance complaints” and “[NYC corporation counsel] purported to enforce Section 90(10) while clearly acting outside the law’s bounds.”
With that ruling in hand, in 2022 and 2023, Accountability NY filed and published dozens more complaints alleging prosecutorial misconduct in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Long Island and other places. The website AccountabilityNY.org currently holds 50 ethics complaints alleging misconduct by prosecutors.
In July 2024, we won another landmark ruling in the lawsuit (now titled CRC v. LaSalle) when the federal judge ruled that we have a presumptive First Amendment right to know what the Grievance Committee and courts decided with the first group of complaints. The state is appealing the federal court’s ruling.
Media Coverage:
Law profs prevail over backlash to publishing prosecutor misconduct cases | Reuters | June 22, 2022
They Publicized Prosecutors’ Misconduct. The Blowback Was Swift | New York Times | Nov 10, 2021
Partners:
Cynthia Godsoe, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Daniel S. Medwed, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University School of Law
Justin Murray, Associate Professor of Law, New York Law School
Nicole Smith Futrell, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
Steven Zeidman, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
Filings:
Summary Judgment (June 13, 2022)
Complaint (Jan 25, 2022)
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Prosecutors are some of the most powerful lawyers and are only rarely held accountable for professional misconduct. In New York, journalists have documented dozens of court findings of prosecutorial misconduct with no consequence. The New York Times Editorial Board wrote in 2018, “there’s no reliable system for holding prosecutors accountable for their misconduct, and they certainly can’t be entrusted with policing themselves.”
Singleton v. Cannizzaro. Our lawsuit sought to end the unconstitutional deception and jailing of crime victims and witnesses by the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. The lawsuit accused District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office of fabricating subpoenas to coerce crime victims and witnesses of crimes into submitting to private out-of-court interrogations; illegal attempts to coerce untruthful testimony; and office-wide practice of presenting fraudulent information in court to persuade judges to issue arrest warrants. In 2017, Civil Rights Corps, with our partners at the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana, filed a lawsuit in federal court against District Attorney Cannizzaro and ten assistant district attorneys.
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