Prosecutors Above the Law: How State Bars Enable Injustice Through Willful Blindness
The American justice system prides itself on the ideal of “equal justice under law.” But in courtrooms across the country, a far more cynical reality plays out—one where prosecutors who commit egregious misconduct walk away unscathed, their careers intact, reputations protected, and victims—often poor, marginalized, or wrongly accused—left in the wreckage.
Let’s be clear: prosecutorial misconduct is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States. Yet state bar associations—those who are supposed to regulate attorneys and protect the public—rarely hold prosecutors accountable. Instead, they act like members of an elite fraternity, shielding their colleagues from discipline while the lives of innocent people are shattered.
If that sounds dramatic, let’s look at the facts.
🧨 The Pattern: Misconduct Without Consequence
Take Jamal Trulove, a young Black man from San Francisco who was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. He spent over six years in prison before a court finally overturned his conviction in 2014, citing prosecutorial misconduct. The city later paid him $13.1 million in a civil settlement. But the prosecutor who helped convict him? Never disciplined. The California State Bar didn’t even hold a hearing.
Then there’s Anthony Wright, who spent 25 years in a Pennsylvania prison for a crime he didn’t commit. DNA evidence proved his innocence in 2016. The detectives and prosecutors responsible were never punished. In fact, some continued their careers unscathed.
And don’t forget Jabbar Collins of Brooklyn. After serving 15 years for a murder he didn’t commit, Collins uncovered a paper trail showing the prosecution coerced witnesses and suppressed evidence. He eventually won a $10 million settlement. Still, no discipline from the New York State Bar.
These aren’t isolated incidents. They represent a system-wide failure—a culture of impunity that shields bad actors and leaves no recourse for those they’ve harmed.
🛡️ The State Bar Cartel: Policing Themselves, Protecting Their Own
State bars were created to protect the public from unethical attorneys. In practice, they often behave like good ol’ boy networks, protecting their own ranks—especially prosecutors, who are often seen as extensions of the state. There is no true independence in these disciplinary systems. Complaints against prosecutors are quietly dismissed. Oversight is minimal. Transparency is nonexistent.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, nearly 30% of wrongful convictions involve prosecutorial misconduct. Yet a 2013 study by the Center for Prosecutor Integrity found that fewer than 2% of those prosecutors faced public discipline from a bar association. That’s not oversight—that’s willful complicity.
This lack of accountability doesn't just undermine faith in the justice system. It perpetuates a cycle of abuse—where prosecutors know they can lie, suppress evidence, and coerce confessions with little fear of consequence.
⚖️ Imagine What This Looks Like in Family Court
If state bars turn a blind eye to misconduct in criminal court—where people face the loss of their liberty—imagine the unchecked power prosecutors and attorneys have in family courts, where the stakes are just as high, and oversight is even weaker.
Family court is often where justice goes to die quietly. Parents—especially those representing themselves—are crushed under biased rulings, opaque proceedings, and attorney-driven delays. Cases drag on for years, bleeding families dry while enriching a network of lawyers, evaluators, and court-appointed experts.
If you think state bars won’t lift a finger to hold prosecutors accountable in criminal court, what makes you think they care about misconduct in family court, where there's no jury, no media spotlight, and almost no recourse for parents steamrolled by unethical attorneys?
In many jurisdictions, family court attorneys file false accusations, submit misleading evidence, and engage in harassment with impunity. The bar associations? Silent. Complaints dismissed. Protections ignored.
It’s not about justice. It’s about prolonging cases, draining retainer funds, and ensuring everyone in the system gets paid—except the parents who just want to see their kids.
🔧 The Reforms We Desperately Need
The time for polite outrage has passed. We need aggressive reform at the local, state, and national levels:
Independent Oversight Boards: State bars cannot police themselves. We need third-party boards with real power to investigate and discipline prosecutors and family law attorneys alike.
Public Hearings and Transparency: All misconduct complaints should be logged in a searchable public database, including reasons for dismissal.
Mandatory Reporting: Judges who identify attorney misconduct should be legally required to report it to an independent oversight body.
Citizen Review Panels: Give communities a voice in deciding which attorneys should continue practicing law after engaging in unethical behavior.
Criminal Penalties for Prosecutorial Misconduct: When prosecutors destroy lives knowingly, there should be criminal liability—period.
💥 Justice Shouldn’t Be a Club
The legal profession is the only one that allows its most powerful members to ruin lives with near-total immunity—and then promotes them. Until that changes, justice will remain a brand, not a reality.
The public deserves better than bar associations that act like gatekeepers for elite insiders instead of guardians of justice.
If you’ve been ignored, harmed, or silenced by unethical attorneys or biased courts, know this: You’re not alone. You’re part of a growing movement of people demanding real accountability, radical transparency, and a justice system that actually deserves the name.
If this story resonates with you, share your experience in the comments or contact me through DM. Your voice matters.
#JusticeDenied
#BarReformNow
#FamilyCourtCorruption
#ProsecutorialMisconduct
An excellent, comprehensive, and accurate summary! Thank you for providing this. I did a deep dive recently on SC judicial misconduct… just in family court and obviously just the cases I knew of Results were remarkable:
https://open.substack.com/pub/leegranade/p/content-with-complacency-chief-justice?r=1rsp0l&utm_medium=ios
This should happen to judges as well. Not only in family courts, but probate courts, civil courts, criminal courts. We've had N.J. family court judges state on the record that the "Constitution doesn't apply in my courtroom". Recently, a N.Y. Judge convicted a man who was building guns in his own home. She said that the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply in her courtroom. Nothing happened to her. She forgot that she took an oath to uphold, support & defend the U.S. Constitution. This judge should have been hammered by the NY Gun rights groups.
HAS YOUR FAMILY COURT JUDGE EVER TOLD YOU THAT THE CONSTITUTION DOESN'T APPLY IN HIS/HER COURTROOM BECAUSE DIVORCE/CUSTODY/CHILD SUPPORT MATTERS ARE A DISPUTE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE? HERE'S HOW TO RESPOND:
It is garbage. You know it is garbage and this post will prove it for you.
We do tons of research on the constitutionality of family law and have long ago found cases that explain this in legal language but today we’re going to share with you some easy language from a Supreme Court case that explains this.
First, the Court said “the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.”
What this means is that the 14th Amendment protects against government violating your rights not against individuals violating your rights. This is important to defeat the ludicrous argument that in Troxel v. Granville the problem the court found was the power of grandparents to petition for custody. This can’t be further from the truth. The problem the court found was the judge’s use of judicial power. Don’t let them tell you any different and refer them to these quotes when they try.
The entirety of this case we are discussing in this post, Shelley v. Kraemer, has to do with the question of whether judicial action to rule on a private contract is a state action. This is almost exactly the same situation as in divorce and custody cases except that divorce and custody cases have a whole body of state law surrounding them that makes them even more of a state action.
The court introduced this case this way “The respondents urge that judicial enforcement of private agreements does not amount to state action; or, in any event, the participation of the State is so attenuated in character as not to amount to state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, it is suggested, even if the States in these cases may be deemed to have acted in the constitutional sense, their action did not deprive petitioners of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
This is the same argument the states, atorney generals, and judges are using now when you try to assert your rights.
Regarding the state’s argument the Court said “That the action of state courts and judicial officers in their official capacities is to be regarded as action of the State within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, is a proposition which has long been established by decisions of this Court. That principle was given expression in the earliest cases involving the construction of the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“Thus, in Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 318 (1880), this Court stated: ‘It is doubtless true that a State may act through different agencies, — either by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities; and the prohibitions of the amendment extend to all action of the State denying equal protection of the laws, whether it be action by one of these agencies or by another.’” (emphasis added)
So if you had any doubt as to whether or not the 14th amendment and constitutional protections apply to your state court in divorce and child custody, there you go…it absolutely applies to “judicial authorities…and…extend to all action of the State denying equal protection of the laws, whether it be action by one of these agencies or by another.”
“In Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 347 (1880), the Court observed: ‘A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way.’”
“In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 11, 17 (1883), this Court pointed out that the Amendment makes void “State action of every kind” which is inconsistent with the guaranties therein contained, and extends to manifestations of ‘State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings.’ Language to like effect is employed no less than eighteen times during the course of that opinion.”
“In Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 90-91 (1908), the Court said: ‘The judicial act of the highest court of the State, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is the act of the State.’”
“In Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill, 281 U.S. 673, 680 (1930), the Court, through Mr. Justice Brandeis, stated: ‘The federal guaranty of due process extends to state action through its judicial as well as through its legislative, executive or administrative branch of government.’”
“These cases demonstrate, also, the early recognition by this Court that state action in violation of the Amendment’s provisions is equally repugnant to the constitutional commands whether directed by state statute or taken by a judicial official in the absence of statute.”
“The action of state courts in imposing penalties or depriving parties of other substantive rights without providing adequate notice and opportunity to defend, has, of course, long been regarded as a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“from the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment until the present, it has been the consistent ruling of this Court that the action of the States to which the Amendment has reference includes action of state courts and state judicial officials.”
“it has never been suggested that state court action is immunized from the operation of those provisions simply because the act is that of the judicial branch of the state government.” (emphasis added)
This quote gets us into the area of family law codes and all of the state infrastructure and federal infrastructure that supports the judicial action, such as Title IV D of the Social Security Act. For except for the active intervention of divorce courts support by state power, we would be free to be parents to our children.
“It is clear that but for the active intervention of the state courts, supported by the full panoply of state power, petitioners would have been free to occupy the properties in question without restraint.”
“The difference between judicial enforcement and nonenforcement of the restrictive covenants is the difference to petitioners between being denied rights of property available to other members of the community and being accorded full enjoyment of those rights on an equal footing.”
Are you not being denied your children and your right to raise your child how you see fit? You can tell your court that they have a duty to protect your fundamental rights from their own exercise of state power, and that another parent bringing the action does not get them out of the fact that they are using state power to bring this action.
“State action, as that phrase is understood for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, refers to exertions of state power in all forms. And when the effect of that action is to deny rights subject to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is the obligation of this Court to enforce the constitutional commands.”
That means it is the judge’s duty to protect you and your child from these attacks by providing the protections of the 14th amendment. When your judge tries to shift the burden on you and when your judge tries to tell you that your rights depend on your marriage or that you are not an equal parent to married parents, now you can show them that they are flat out wrong as this quote so clearly shows. (for a full expose on the status of parental rights as individual rights and showing how your rights must be the same as the rights of married persons, see our treatise, The Equal Rights of Parents.) The divorce court cannot achieve equal protection of the laws by arbitrary imposition of inequalities the way they do today.
“The rights created by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment are, by its terms, guaranteed to the individual. The rights established are personal rights. Equal protection of the laws is not achieved through indiscriminate imposition of inequalities.”
When your judge tries to tell you that your ex-spouse has a right to demand that the state take away your parental rights or that the child’s best interest demands you give up your rights you can argue this citation.
“The Constitution confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State which results in the denial of equal protection of the laws to other individuals.”
If you are facing battles over property division and your judge tells you that the constitution doesn’t apply to you in divorce, you can argue this citation.
“And it would appear beyond question that the power of the State to create and enforce property interests must be exercised within the boundaries defined by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
This one case provides you a wealth of argument from the Supreme Court to support your parental rights. This is but one of the ways corrupt family law courts use to illegally deprive you of your fundamental rights. There are many more tricks that they use but we are destroying each and every one of them until they are left without any possible excuse.