I am curious about the job routine of a prosecutor, the emotions they go through (how do they feel if they manage to get a criminal on the death penalty, life imprisonment, etc.) What makes a good prosecutor? Who aspires to become a prosecutor? Thanks! Additional information is greatly appreciated.
I am not I am not a prosecutor. I am a federal court interpreter and I work for the OSDOJ District of Puerto Rico. Most of my friends are SAUSAs and AUSAs, aka, Prosecutors. The emotions a prosecutor goes through are the same as any attorney and this is going to be as individual as the person and the case. Some people have a gift for divorcing themselves from the emotive dynamics of a case, others find other ways to process and work through that aspect. Depending on the District, getting a case to court with the death penalty even still on the table is a big thing, a serious feather in one's cap. It's not that they view the penalty with insouciance, but getting it to stay on the table is no mean feat and speaks as to the caliber of the prosecutor. We recently had a case go to trial with capital punishment still in play and this was seen as a serious victory for the prosecutor within the halls of the DA's office.
Prosecutors are people too, and there's no "one size fits all" answer. some people seek the job because of a sense of right and wrong, some because it's a living with benefits. Some do it because they really don't like practicing law in a private practice, or can't hack it. From my personal experience, as a defense attorney in a mid sized Kentucky town, prosecutors come from two main groups: Those that can't make a living in a regular practice, and those that have gotten so pissed off at the prosecutor before them that they ran for the job just to get the prior prosecutor else out. That's why my father did it. He could retire or stick it to the a*hole in office, so he stuck it to the a*hole in office. As far as their emotions, my father did a number of things he didn't like having to do, such as prosecute people for possession of marijuana (he didn't use but didn't see the problem with it) and prosecuting a convenient store operator for not covering the playboy with brown paper so kids couldn't see it. He saw a lot of stupid prosecution simply because a busybody filed a complaint. It is a tedious job, with the public constantly disatisfied with your performance in one fashion or another. My father's job was prosecution of misdemeanors, so it is much more tedious than one who deals with felonies and death penalty cases. Many are more interested in doing right; some just want the prestige that comes with getting a conviction. Many are hung up on the conviction rate, like it's a big deal
Yes i've tried, but most answers that came out were very superficial and mostly described the job characteristics of a prosecutor. I wanted to hear more about what goes on inside a prosecutor, not on the outside. This is a great piece of information. Very much what i was looking for, thanks! Thanks for the insight. It's interesting to know about the prosecution of misdemeanors being more tedious compared to felonies and death penalty cases. I was always under the impression that a vast majority of prosecutors chose their line of work because of the sense of right and wrong they have.
In my part of the country, every prosecutor has either taken the job because it was given to them (via appointment) or because they were fed up with the abuses of the prior prosecutor
