Why The Prosecutor In The Eric Greitens Case Could Be The One Who Ends Up In JailIt is very possible that Kim Gardner will lose this trial, and the process by which this case was handled will prove a case study in how not to prosecute.
By Dave Grossman
March 21, 2018
It didn’t take long for the wheels to start coming off the wagon of St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s prosecution of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
An indictment with dubious origins and few facts has led to a trial with almost unbelievable moments of legal comedy. There was the initial hearing, when the prosecution admitted to the judge that they don’t have evidence to win the trial. Then there the moment when the prosecutors had to tell the defense that they didn’t have the photo that is supposedly the reason for the indictment in the first place.
And last, but most certainly not least, there was the moment when the prosecution allegedly broke the law by bringing on a prosecutor who was serving elsewhere as a criminal defense attorney. Yep, that’s a crime in the state of Missouri, and the prosecution allegedly committed it. Whoops.
It’s been my experience, after decades in law enforcement, that prosecutors tend to know the difference between what is and is not a crime. Most of the time, that is. In the case of Kim Gardner, I’ll admit: I’m not sure she does. Because in her action against Greitens, she appears to have missed the boat on what a crime is. In this case, she has no victim, very little evidence, no legal standing — and given all that, almost no hope of conviction. The slipshod work by the prosecution led one high-level member of law enforcement in the state of Missouri to call this “a clown show prosecution,†and that opinion is widely shared in legal and law enforcement circles in Missouri. ...
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