Where the power lies - and lies dormant

In reference to your article over a month ago headlined "Accident Charges Still Pending," I noted that the county attorney said, "A charging decision will likely be made in February." I haven't seen a follow-up article, therefore I checked to see if a decision had been made and found that there still has not been a decision made by the county attorney.

This is an absolute ridiculous and disgusting situation. I'm going to make a couple observations which are based on my 30-year career in law enforcement.

First, most people think that the power in the justice system is wielded by either the judge/jury in a court trial and/or the police who make the initial arrest. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ultimate power within the justice system lies with the prosecuting attorney. The prosecuting attorney decides if charges are even going to be filed, makes the decision as to exactly what those charges will be (usually reduced), makes the decision as to what the plea agreement will be, and is instrumental in overseeing what the penalty or sentence will be.

My second observation, again based on my personal 30-year experience dealing with the "justice?" system is that whenever you have a situation like this one, where the prosecuting attorney takes this long to make a decision, something is wrong. Again, in my experience, this usually equates to one of two things: Either the suspect knows "someone," is related to "someone," or has some type of influence somewhere OR the prosecuting attorney is fearful of losing the case which might result in his/her conviction rate dropping a few percentage points.

I fully expect the county attorney will respond with a pious, indignant, self-righteous excuse laden response which he and I both know is the only politically correct way for him to react but we both really know, in our heart of hearts, what's really going on here.

Instead of making excuses, file the case and let a jury decide the issues. Actually, that's why you were put in office by the voters - to serve EVERYONE.

There are ways to combat this type of conduct. Where I came from, the local newspaper had an "investigative/police reporter" who became very successful and influential. She was the criminal justice system watchdog. She watched us (police) very closely and she watched the district attorney and courts very closely. She was successful enough that she developed several moles within the police department (not me) and several moles within the court system. Her investigative reporting was instrumental in a district attorney's defeat for re-election on two separate occasions. We were lucky enough to have her for almost 10 years before one of the national news agencies snapped her up and she went on to bigger and better things. You, The Press, need to be more proactive, aggressive, and confrontational in your investigations and reporting on these types of egregious situations.

Kevin Hawk is a Coeur d'Alene resident.