HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
THE UNTOUCHABLES
Ben Cohen, a defense attorney
who practices in New Orleans,
but lives in Ohio. “Filing an ethics complaint against a prosecutor
can be devastating for a defense
lawyer. It can ruin you professionally. You can’t get a plea. You risk
having them take it out on your
clients. What Dalton has done is
set an example. For a man of his
stature, it means something.”
Cohen recently filed his own
ethics complaints alleging misconduct in the case of Jamaal
Tucker, a client who in October
2010 was convicted of killing a
man outside a public housing
project in New Orleans. Assistant District Attorney Eusi Phillips’s first two attempts to convict
Tucker ended in mistrials, one after Judge Julian Parker found that
prosecutors had violated his order
to turn over exculpatory evidence.
Parker even threatened to convene
a grand jury to investigate the
misconduct. One witness testified in Tucker’s second trial that
he was recanting his prior statements, and could no longer recall
witnessing the shooting.
Prosecutors then threatened
him with perjury charges. The
same witness then testified again
at Tucker’s third trial, perjury
charges still hanging, and was
once again able to recall what he
thought he had seen.
Two other witnesses had cut
deals with prosecutors, yet were
still permitted to tell the jury
otherwise. One of them, Morris
Greene, told the jury that he was
testifying against Tucker “out of
the goodness of my heart.” But
Greene had sent a letter to the
office of current Orleans Parish
District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro
asking for money and leniency on
his own charges for armed robbery in Lafayette Parish. That letter wasn’t turned over to Tucker’s
defense. Cohen knew of the charges against Greene, and sent an
investigator to sit on the proceedings in Lafayette, about 135 miles
west of New Orleans. According to
Cohen, a prosecutor in Lafayette
Parish told t