Civics: When Civil Immunity Becomes Impunity

Alexa L. Gervasi and Daryl James:

Defense attorneys must wait to hear decisions from the bench, but retired prosecutor Ralph Petty avoided the suspense during his career in West Texas. He often knew what judges would say in advance because he wrote the script.

For 20 years, as USA Today reported last year, Mr. Petty spent his days prosecuting criminal cases and opposing prisoners’ appeals for the Midland County District Attorney’s Office. In the evenings he moonlighted as a law clerk for the judges presiding over those same cases. The conflict of interest allegedly allowed Mr. Petty to shape judicial thinking behind the scenes, draft court documents in his favor, gain access to defense materials generally unavailable to prosecutors, and earn more than $250,000 in the process. He did this on hundreds of cases, and without defendants’ knowledge or consent, while county and court officials kept the arrangement quiet among themselves.