Liptak came up with something interesting yesterday.  He should get a bonus.  His New York Times piece tells about a California  Supreme Court decision which, though cautioning prosecutors to “try their case in court,” reversed a lower appellate court’s recusal of the prosecutor on a death penalty case.

Before going any further, it is critical to note the name of the defendant first:  Jesse James Hollywood.  I kid you not.  This kid was destined for trouble.  What was his mother thinking?

So here’s what happened:

The case asserting a cinematic conflict of interest involved Jesse James Hollywood, who faces the death penalty for his role in the 2000 kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old boy. While Mr. Hollywood was a fugitive in Brazil in 2003, Ronald Zonen, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, gave information and documents about him to Nick Cassavetes, a director and screenwriter.

And indeed, the story ultimately found its way into the movies.

The film, “Alpha Dog,” was released last year, and it flattered neither Mr. Hollywood, depicted as a dimwitted nihilist called Johnny Truelove, nor the audience. Manohla Dargis, writing in The New York Times, said the film had “much the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another in a zoo.”

From the legal perspective, bear in mind that this prosecutor, Zonen, handed over confidential records he possessed as a deputy district attorney to a Hollywood director.  Zonen claimed his intentions were good:

Mr. Zonen, who was not paid for his consulting work, said he had hoped the film would lead to Mr. Hollywood’s apprehension.

As it turned out, Mr. Hollywood (the real one, not the cliché) was caught before the film was released.  Because of Zonen’s conduct, his attorney argued that Zonen should be recused for his efforts to poison the jury pool and his misconduct in releasing his file to a movie guy.

On appeal, the Court held that Zonen engaged in conduct that was “highly inappropriate and disturbing” but did not rise to the level requiring his recusal for having denied defendant a fair trial.  Probably true, as it’s unlikely that any movie was going to poison the well in this case.  The defendant’s name alone was going to assure that he was the subject of attention.

But here again, a prosecutor does wrong, and so what?  This deputy should have been canned as soon as his boss found out that he opened his file to a director.  This was a crime, according to the California Supreme Court.  And that’s okay?

While recusal for having sought to poison the well may have been rejected, why not recusal for demonstrating the lack of ethics for committing a crime in the course of the prosecution?  The defendant is entitled to a prosecutor who will perform his duty ethically and properly, not one who happily commits a crime in the process.  He must be trusted to perform such functions as providing Brady material and otherwise acting in good faith.  If he doesn’t mind committing crimes, then how can the system be assured that he will perform his function ethically otherwise?

And this is how bad movies happen.