ABSTRACT
Introduction Political philosophy studies a state’s relationship to its citizens, and especially the state’s exercise of power over its citizens. Nowhere is this exercise of power more evident than in the institutions of criminal justice; and in the United States, no agent of the state exercises more power over the lives of those suspected of crimes than does the criminal prosecutor. The discretion prosecutors enjoy in deciding whether and for what crimes to charge individuals gives them enormous influence over who is and is not ultimately convicted. This is especially so given that more than 90 percent of criminal convictions result from a defendant offering a guilty plea rather than from a jury verdict.2 Prosecutors are thus political figures in that they are key agents in the exercise of state power. They are political figures in another sense, as well: Most prosecutors at the state and local levels are elected officials. A volume on political ethics thus seems an ideal forum to discuss the ethical obligations borne by this central political agent, the prosecutor.
