THE PEOPLE v. ANDREW VASQUEZ
Filed 7/10/06
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA
THE PEOPLE, )
)
Plaintiff and Respondent, )
) S128854
v. )
) Ct.App. 2/7 B159379
ANDREW VASQUEZ et al., )
) Los Angeles County
Defendants and Appellants. ) Super. Ct. No. BA200494
___________ )
Story continue from Part II ………
The strongest argument for considering the participation of a conflicted prosecutor to be structural error is the third one relied upon in Vuitton, supra, 481 U.S. at pages 812-813, and echoed by a number of other cases (see fn. 10, ante): that the potential effects of the error pervade the proceedings, possibly including any of the discretionary decisions the prosecutor makes from charging to sentence recommendation, and themselves could affect the composition of the record, making it practically impossible to trace the error's prejudicial effects. This is obviously true in a certain respect: the reasons for a prosecutor's discretionary decisions rarely appear in the record, and one often cannot know what different decisions a nonconflicted prosecutor would have made.
Yet sometimes defendants are able to show actual prejudice, or at least a strong probability of actual unfair treatment, as, for example, in Ganger, where there was evidence the prosecutor â€