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Prosecutors represent the sovereign — the state or federal government — and their primary obligation is to uphold the Constitution and ensure justice is done. Their decisions must be anchored in:

• Due process
• Civil rights
• Equal protection
• Transparency
• Integrity
   

Their job is to protect the community from unlawful government action as much as from criminal behavior.

Police investigate, Prosecutors evaluate.

The roles are deliberately separate.

Prosecutors are not supposed to “take the police officer’s word for it.” They are not supposed to treat allegations from law enforcement as presumptively truthful. They are not supposed to advance charges when evidence is weak, contradictory, or completely absent.

They are independent constitutional actors — a necessary check on police power.

When prosecutors act as if they are simply “legal advisors for police,” the system becomes distorted, abusive, and unconstitutional.

Every American prosecutor is bound by the ethical rule that prosecution may only proceed when:

This is an if-and-only-if standard.

A prosecutor must not:

• File charges merely because police allege wrongdoing
• Proceed with a case to “let the jury decide”
• Rely on unverified police narratives
• Ignore exculpatory video or contradictory evidence
• Use jail, indictment, or trial as leverage to force a plea
   

The Supreme Court, state statutes, bar rules, and prosecutorial ethics standards all agree:

A prosecutor’s first duty is to seek justice, not convictions.
 

When that duty is ignored, innocent people are jailed, families destroyed, and constitutional rights violated.

Many prosecutors accept police statements at face value, even when video evidence directly contradicts the officer’s claims. When prosecutors fail to independently examine the facts, they become complicit in false arrests and unconstitutional charges.

When prosecutors bypass preliminary hearings and go straight to a grand jury, they avoid presenting evidence in an adversarial hearing — often hiding exculpatory video from judges and defense attorneys.

This transforms grand juries into rubber stamps rather than safeguards.

Cases that should never have been initiated are pursued aggressively, even when:

• Video exonerates the accused
• Police affidavits include false statements
• Essential elements of the crime are plainly absent

Dismissals often occur only after journalists or public exposure, not because prosecutors fulfilled their duty.

Some prosecutors openly coordinate with police to “make charges stick” even when the statute does not support the charge. This betrays the prosecutor’s constitutional role.

When prosecutors protect police misconduct instead of protecting the public, communities lose confidence in the justice system entirely.

An unlawful arrest is a serious violation of constitutional rights.
But when that violation is compounded by a malicious, reckless, or indifferent prosecution, the harm multiplies — not incrementally, but exponentially.

Police officers make arrests.
Prosecutors decide whether the machinery of the state will continue to grind a person down.

That distinction matters more than most people realize.

Police officers can — and do — make unlawful arrests. Sometimes out of ignorance. Sometimes out of ego. Sometimes out of retaliation. Sometimes because the law gives them broad latitude in the moment and little immediate accountability afterward.

But prosecutors are different.

Prosecutors are not operating in the heat of the moment.
They have time.
They have training.
They have access to the evidence.
They have ethical rules.
They have discretion.

Most importantly, they have a duty.

A prosecutor is ethically obligated to pursue charges if and only if the available facts support a prosecution that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and was obtained through lawful, constitutional means.

When a prosecutor proceeds anyway — despite obvious constitutional violations, missing statutory elements, or clear exculpatory evidence — that is no longer a policing failure.
That is a prosecutorial failure.

Many cases of prosecutorial misconduct never result in a conviction — and that fact is often used to minimize the harm.

But the damage is already done.

By the time charges are quietly dropped or never formally filed:

• A person may have been jailed for days, weeks, or months
• A job may have been lost
• Housing may have been destabilized or lost entirely
• Children may have been separated from caregivers
• Medical care may have been interrupted
• Immigration consequences may have been triggered
• Savings may have been drained just to survive the process
   

For prosecutors, declining to file charges later costs nothing.
For the person targeted, the cost can be life-altering.

Justice delayed, quietly abandoned, or strategically avoided is not justice.

County and state prosecutors are among the most powerful actors in the American justice system.

• In all but three states, they are elected officials
• They exercise enormous discretion
• They are shielded by extensive immunity doctrines
• They face little meaningful oversight
• They are rarely disciplined for ethical violations
   

This combination — power without accountability — creates fertile ground for abuse.

And history shows us who bears the brunt of that abuse.

Wealth insulates. Poverty exposes.

For people with financial means, an unlawful prosecution is often survivable:

• Bail can be paid
• Lawyers can be hired
• Time off work can be absorbed
• Records can be cleaned
   

For everyone else, prosecution functions as a poverty multiplier.

Cash bail systems alone turn prosecutorial decisions into matters of life and death.
A single charging decision can mean:

• Freedom or incarceration
• Employment or unemployment
• Shelter or homelessness
   

In a society already strained by:

• Private equity firms hollowing out housing markets
• “Price optimization” driving grocery costs up over 30% since 2020
• Healthcare and childcare costs consuming entire paychecks
   

Prosecutors who recklessly pursue cases against people without the means to fight them are not just enforcing the law — they are actively deepening inequality.

This is not abstract.
This is structural harm.

Police initiate contact.
Prosecutors decide whether the state will continue the punishment.

A prosecutor who refuses to proceed can stop injustice cold.
A prosecutor who presses forward can legitimize unconstitutional conduct and weaponize the legal system itself.

That is why prosecutors are supposed to function as gatekeepers — not accomplices.

When they fail to draw that line, the system doesn’t just malfunction.
It betrays the public.

A common response to all of this is resignation:

“Nothing ever changes.”
 

But history tells a different story.

Change does not come from silence.
It comes when the cost of misconduct becomes higher than the cost of accountability.

Public documentation, exposure, organizing, and pressure make accountability inelastic — they force decision-makers to feel consequences they can no longer ignore.

Prosecutors may enjoy broad immunity from lawsuits, but they do not enjoy immunity from:

• Ethical complaints
• Electoral consequences
• Public scrutiny
• Historical record
   

Those pressures matter — especially for elected officials.

Prosecutors derive their authority from the people.
They serve at the pleasure — and under the scrutiny — of the public.

At the bottom of this page, you will find mailing addresses for filing ethical complaints against prosecutors in every state in the United States.  

These mechanisms exist for a reason.

Using them is not harassment.
It is civic responsibility.

Unchecked power thrives in darkness.
Accountability begins when we refuse to look away.

Together - We the People - can effect the changes that must be made in order to create our More Perfect Union.

THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE CONTAINS SOME RECEIPTS OF RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE PROSECUTIONS, INCLUDING THE RELEVANT PROSECUTOR/JURISDICTION/STATE.