Legal Commentary

I recently received a copy of a letter from a prosecutor -- Dale L. DuTremble, the City Prosecutor for North Charleston, South Carolina -- addressed to the victim of an alleged crime. The allegations involved an assault, and DuTremble sent the letter to both of the women involved, explaining why he would not prosecute the case.

Some of his reasons are pretty straightforward and we see these all the time:  "there are no independent witnesses to this alleged assault" and "there are no reported injuries." But then the letter takes a bizarre -- I would even say petty and abusive -- turn. 

I also have learned that neither of you have a green card and are in this country illegally. I further have been advised that it will cost the City of North Charleston a great deal of money to hire an interpreter whose qualifications meet the requirements of both sides in this dispute. I have no intention of asking the City of North Charleston to spend any money at all for two grown women who, despite being in this country illegally, cannot observe the basic courtesy expected of both citizens and guests of this country. This includes the courtesy of obeying the law. I have decided to refer both of your names to ICE; more specifically, to the office of Detention and Removal, in Atlanta, Georgia, with a request that they begin deportation proceedings immediately. Once deported to your country, you will be free to fight with each other on a daily basis, and since you both speak Spanish, you will be right at home in the court system of your native land.

A copy of the letter appears at this link: Download sc_prosecutor_letter_immigration_2008.pdf . I have to wonder if language this insulting and inappropriate from a public official is genuine. I have no reason to believe the document is a hoax, but I suppose that is possible.

Assuming this is an authentic document, however, I'm part scandalized and part curious. I will not rehearse for you all the familiar arguments about the value of strong and cooperative relationships between a community and the police and prosecutors that serve them, and how that might apply in communities with large Latino populations, where a number of residents arrived in the country illegally. My curiosity focuses on this question: What did the prosecutor believe he was accomplishing by sending this letter? Was this letter just the result of a barroom dare among attorneys socializing after work? Did he anticipate that a copy of the letter would circulate to create predictable effects in the community, or did he say it just to make himself feel better?  How often does he write insulting letters to the victims of alleged crimes?

It's enough to drive a law professor to write about prosecutorial accountability.