Mean Justice (85 page)

Allegations of misconduct, improper leaks and abuse of power are raised against Whitewater Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr during his epic confrontation with President Bill Clinton. The nation’s best-known prosecutor and investigator of high-level wrongdoing, Starr himself comes under investigation for allegedly leaking secret grand jury information to the press, and for secret payments allegedly made to a witness who offered testimony against the president. Starr’s tactics also come under attack in the prosecution of presidential friend Susan McDougal and defense witness Julie Steele, both of whom accused Starr of using his power to attempt to persuade them to lie, then prosecuting them when they refused. (McDougal was subsequently acquitted of criminal contempt, and Steele’s jury could not reach a verdict.) Starr was also criticized when he subpoenaed presidential aide Sidney Blumenthal before the grand jury to question him
about his comments to the press about two of Starr’s assistants (the comments concerned past allegations of prosecutorial misconduct lodged against the assistants). Starr asserted that Blumenthal—and anyone else who publicly criticizes the special prosecutor in a fashion Starr considers inaccurate—could be guilty of obstruction of justice, a notion many journalistic and legal observers condemn. Ken Starr, more than any public figure or criminal case has ever done in the past, has made the general public aware of the sweeping power prosecutors possess in contemporary America: how a prosecutor often answers to no authority but his own conscience and sense of duty; how he may remain unbowed even before the President of the United States; and how the grand juries he convenes have become his tools rather than the checks and balances envisioned by the Founding Fathers. What is not as abundantly clear to the public is the fact that Starr’s extraordinary powers and absence of accountability are in large part shared by every local, county, state and federal prosecutor in America.

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Copyright © 1999 by Edward Humes
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Humes, Edward.
Mean justice : a town’s terror, a prosecutor’s power, a betrayal of innocence/
Edward Humes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Criminal justice, Administration of—California—Kern County.
2. Prosecution—California—Kern County. 3. Judicial error—
California—Kern County. 4. Dunn, Patrick O’Dale—Trials, litigation, etc.
5. Trials (Murder)—California—Kern County. I. Title.
KFC1199.K472C724   1999

364.15’23’0979488—dc21

98-43801

CIP
ISBN 978-1-4767-0267-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4767-1172-0 (eBook)