INTRODUCTION History makes a fleet...

INTRODUCTION

History makes a fleeting appearance in novel debates about reforming the prosecutor's office. antagonistics of the way discretion is generally exercised often contend that because a prosecutor is a public servant, he ought to save defendants' rights as well as convict the guilty. (1) When this position is couched in historical expressions it appeals to a prosecutorial self-image, purportedly occasioned in the past, to encourage fairness and to curtail the excesse of the adversary a whole Bruce Green asserts, for example, that the "prosecutor's function to `seek justice'.... dates back well through the whole extent of a century." (2) Advocates of victims' rights and