Prosecutor Pool

One of the problems facing the criminal justice system is that it becomes very easy for the goal of prosecutors to shift from seeing justice done to winning at any cost. There are numerous reasons for this, but it basically comes down to the fact that the prosecuting attorney is all too often being graded (either by his supervisors, by politicians, or by the voting public) based on the appearance of being "tough on crime". The career path of a prosecutor is unfortunately determined by how many convictions he has, because there's no easy way to measure how much justice was done. The solution, then, would be to remove this pressure from prosecutors somehow.

Under this proposal, there would be a separate bar roster maintained for attorneys whose main practice involves criminal defense trials. When a prosecutor is needed on a case, one of these attorneys would be summoned to take on the task. Up until the actual trial, the case would be handled by an "investigating prosecutor", who is a government employee and is responsible for determining the facts and making the decision of what charges to file. Once the trial starts, however, the trial prosecutor takes over, and is the final authority on how to proceed in the case. The trial prosecutor would be then be duty bound to do his best to see that justice is done, but since he wouldn't ultimately be accountable to the government or the public for his actions (within reason), he wouldn't have the same pressure to try and manipulate the facts and the jury to present a distorted picture of a questionable case.

Of course, this raises the possibility that prosecutors might simply throw the trial, presenting an ineffective case or colluding with their defense attorney buddies. So there still needs to be some accountability, and this accountability would come from the bar. Whenever a question is raised about the performance of a prosecutor, the government could request the bar to empower an independent board to review the case and determine whether the prosecutor's actions were reasonable. The attorney is called in to defend his decision. If the attorney is found to have made grossly unreasonable decisions then sanctions may be imposed, from being suspended from the criminal defense attorney roster for a period of time (thus forbidding him from representing criminal defendants in court) up to and including disbarment and a referral for criminal prosecution in severe cases of misconduct.

Trial prosecutors might receive a small stipend for their work, but they would be exempt from jury duty, in essence trading one civic responsibility for another.