Legal Ethics

Attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona asked a judge Friday to instruct jurors in his upcoming corruption trial that federal prosecutors violated state ethical guidelines when they instructed a former assistant sheriff to secretly record conversations with Carona last year. U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford has already denied a defense request to exclude the recordings as evidence in Carona's trial, now scheduled to begin Aug. 26.

A former U.S. military prosecutor at Guantanamo, who accuses his superiors of suppressing evidence, refused Thursday to testify in a war crimes case unless he is granted immunity. Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who was called as a defense witness, revealed a day earlier that he had quit over what he called ethical lapses by prosecutors. His action has sent ripples throughout the U.S.

The North Carolina State Bar on Wednesday leveled new ethics charges against the former prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case, alleging he withheld potentially exculpatory DNA evidence and misled a judge and defense attorneys. Durham County Dist. Atty. Mike Nifong recently handed the high-profile case over to the state attorney general after the bar charged him with making statements in the media that were likely to prejudice the trial.

The judge in the Phil Spector murder trial ruled Tuesday that the defense violated evidence rules by presenting surprise testimony that Lana Clarkson did not immediately die after she was shot at the record producer's Alhambra mansion four years ago.

The Justice Department revealed Tuesday that it has reopened an internal investigation into whether department lawyers acted unethically or broke any laws in connection with the government's warrantless electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects. The internal probe was suspended last year after President Bush refused to grant security clearances so that investigators could interview Justice officials and others about the National Security Agency program.

An FBI agent and federal prosecutors repeatedly violated Anthony Pellicano's 6th Amendment right to counsel by having his onetime girlfriend secretly elicit information from him during prison visits, the former private eye's attorneys allege in new court papers. The accusation of government misconduct is contained in a request by Pellicano's lawyers for an unusual court hearing in which they hope to prove that wiretapping and racketeering charges against him should be dismissed.

A federal judge on Monday agreed to hold an unusual evidentiary hearing to explore defense allegations of government misconduct in the wiretapping prosecution of private investigator Anthony Pellicano. The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer was a rare victory for attorneys of the former private eye to the stars.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's chief assistant and a prominent defense lawyer said here Wednesday that Los Angeles County has dramatically reduced the use of jailhouse informant testimony over the last 15 years. But a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California said the practice continues in Northern and Central California with, in some instances, little policy or oversight regulating their use.

Los Angeles prosecutor Steven J. Ipsen, arguing his first murder case in 1990, told a jury that Tauno Waidla had used a hatchet to inflict "the death blow" that killed a woman in her North Hollywood living room. Waidla was sentenced to die. Several months later, the same prosecutor told a different jury that Waidla's accomplice, Peter Sakarias, had "finally ended" the life of the victim, Viivi Piirisild. Sakarias also was sentenced to die for the murder.

The California Supreme Court, condemning a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney's conduct in a death penalty case, ruled Thursday that prosecutors should not intentionally tell different juries that two defendants committed the same crime when only one could have been responsible. In 1988, two men, Peter Sakarias and Tauno Waidla, attacked Viivi Piirisild with a hatchet and a knife in her North Hollywood home. The men had separate trials. In both, the court found, Los Angeles Deputy Dist.