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Special Prosecutor or Ombudsman?
| Article
# : |
13454 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1987 |
2,135 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The latest wrinkle in constitutional procedure - the office of a court-appointed special prosecutor - was instituted in the wake of the Saturday Night Massacre, when Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox during the Watergate investigation. Cox had been chosen by Attorney General Elliott Richardson to avoid the appearance of impropriety that might have arisen from the investigation of the president by a member of his official family.
Congress later decided, against the advice of President Ford's attorney general, Edward Levi, to establish a procedure by which the attorney general recommends that a court appoint a special prosecutor who would not be subject to removal by the president.
The strongest argument in favor of a court-appointed special prosecutor is that the public could suspect that an investigation of a government official might be under the influence of the administration being investigated. The purpose is noble, but might there not be a better solution to this problem?
The history of the special prosecutor has been one of zealotry. The object of this office seems to have been to find a crime to prosecute rather than to determine whether a criminal procedure is the proper remedy to a discovered delict. This zeal has been carried to such extremes that one prosecutor has attempted to undermine the diplomatic immunity of the Canadian ambassador.
The problem with zealous prosecutorial attitudes is that not a day goes by when laws are not benignly broken by government officials; the government could not run otherwise. For example, by
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