In State v. Sandy and Surpris, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ____, COA15-996, (2016) our court of appeals vacated drug dealing convictions against Barshiri Sandy and Henry Surpris. The COA found out via a motion for appropriate relief that a Wake Assistant District Attorney and a Raleigh Police Officer knew their star witness was a drug dealer. Further, they memorialized their knowledge in an email chain on the ADA's private email account rather than her government email. That allowed her to avoid giving the information of their star witness' involvement in the drug trade to the defense. Worse, for the ADA, she allowed her star witness to testify at trial that he was not involved in the drug trade!
The defendants Sandy and Surpris, denied involvement in drug dealing, claiming that the witness was lying. Of course, without the information to impeach him, information well known to the prosecutor in the court room, their lawyers were unable to convince the jury that the state's witness was lying and their clients were telling the truth. A conviction ensued. Unfortunately, for the Wake D.A.'s office, the federal government was about to indict their witness and his involvement in the drug trade come out. But, the real surprise was the emails between the ADA and the RPD keeping that fact a secret from the defense and denying them the opportunity to effectively cross examine the witness.
The COA did the right thing, it followed the law and vacated the convictions. Wake's elected DA, Lorrin Freeman, when she found out, put ADA Colleen Janssen on paid leave so that an investigation could be conducted. While the COA did not name Janssen, your intrepid blogger, through a confidential source, found out that it was Janssen who used her own email account and was the prosecutor in the Sandy and Srupris case at trial. Janssen has now resigned and is, appropriately, facing an inquiry from the NC Bar. I have known Colleen Janssen for many years, and this brings me no pleasure to report. However, you cannot use a private email account to hide information in a criminal trial without consequences. The defendant's right to a fair trial demands the state and its agents be accountable for their misconduct.
Walt-in-Durham
I find this violation to be even more clear cut than the violations committed by Mike Nifong. Janssen hid evidence (even using a private e-mail to do so, suborned perjury and manipulated the timing of another criminal case in order to do so. The RPD detective willingly cooperated in this obstruction of justice.
ReplyDeleteI assume that the State Bar will seek Janssen's disbarment. A milder punishment would be a dereliction of duty such as that seen in the proceedings against the Gell prosecutors. Has any action been taken against the detective? He was clearly aware of the obstruction.
Are any criminal charges possible? I presume not due to the absolute immunity for prosecutors and qualified immunity for police.
I assume that Janssen will attempt the "Hillary" defense, arguing that her use of private e-mail was for convenience and not to try to hide anything. She simply forgot to turn it over.
John D. Smith
New York, NY
I have the suspicion that far too many ADAs and even too many DAs might use their own gmail for conducting public business.
ReplyDeleteWalt