After all, Ekeland argues, Salinas has already been pilloried in the local and national press, which touted the early charges against him, but ignored the fact that they were dropped.
This is what incentivizes the prosecutors to a large extent. It's a political office (even in the case of US attorneys who are appointees, they're appointed by the administration, and that job is often a stepping stone towards running for a state AG job or some other political office) and the sad fact is that in many parts of the country there are more people who want to throw the book at people they perceive criminals than there are people concerned with proportionality or preserving the rights of defendants. In fact, most people are complete hypocrites about legal process and will cheerfully make completely opposite arguments depending who is int he hot seat and why.
So there's a clear incentive for prosecutors to paint anyone they catch as some Moriarty-like crime lord and of course that makes great news copy - big number, cooperative prosecutor, astonished neighbors saying they never realized they were living next to a crime lord, all heavily edited for maximum emotional impact within the tight constraints of the 'Action News' format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_News - the reason local TV news in the US is so awful is because it's manufactured on a template rather than crafted in response to the facts of the story).
And of course, there's no requirement to report the much less interesting (to most people) outcome of someone having their charges downgraded to a few months in jail and a fine. Because of the first amendment it's difficult for defendants to keep their name out of the media pending the outcome of a trial (whenever courts put anything under seal news organizations tend to file suit to gain access while mouthing platitudes about 'the public's right to know') and there's no way to compel the media to give equally prominent coverage to defendants whoa re acquitted, exonerated, have charges downgraded and so on.
This is what incentivizes the prosecutors to a large extent. It's a political office (even in the case of US attorneys who are appointees, they're appointed by the administration, and that job is often a stepping stone towards running for a state AG job or some other political office) and the sad fact is that in many parts of the country there are more people who want to throw the book at people they perceive criminals than there are people concerned with proportionality or preserving the rights of defendants. In fact, most people are complete hypocrites about legal process and will cheerfully make completely opposite arguments depending who is int he hot seat and why.
So there's a clear incentive for prosecutors to paint anyone they catch as some Moriarty-like crime lord and of course that makes great news copy - big number, cooperative prosecutor, astonished neighbors saying they never realized they were living next to a crime lord, all heavily edited for maximum emotional impact within the tight constraints of the 'Action News' format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_News - the reason local TV news in the US is so awful is because it's manufactured on a template rather than crafted in response to the facts of the story).
And of course, there's no requirement to report the much less interesting (to most people) outcome of someone having their charges downgraded to a few months in jail and a fine. Because of the first amendment it's difficult for defendants to keep their name out of the media pending the outcome of a trial (whenever courts put anything under seal news organizations tend to file suit to gain access while mouthing platitudes about 'the public's right to know') and there's no way to compel the media to give equally prominent coverage to defendants whoa re acquitted, exonerated, have charges downgraded and so on.