It’s hard to see how one could reasonably argue that prosecutors should be permitted to operate under different sets of rules.

Unfortunately, it appears something like that could be happening as the result of a decision by some county attorneys in New Hampshire not to turn over to local prosecutors a list of police officers who could have credibility issues if called to testify in court.

In a memorandum issued nearly 10 years ago, former Attorney General Peter Heed directed county attorneys and the AG’s office to keep such a list of officers whose credibility might be in question because they may have committed some professional transgression like lying under oath, as an example. Heed also instructed county attorneys to share their lists with prosecutors who handle cases for local police departments, something that, according to a story in last week’s New Hampshire Union Leader, almost never happens.

One prosecutor, Strafford County’s Thomas Velardi, told the paper that protecting the names on the list is the most important thing, and that it is incumbent on local prosecutors to call him with the names of specific officers if they want to know if a particular cop might have an issue. He added that the practice of county attorneys sharing their Laurie list with local prosecutors is unheard of, as far as he knows.

Sorry, but protecting the names of police officers on the list is only the most important thing if justice is not. Protecting the names on the list is only the most important thing if the rights of the accused don’t matter. We suspect state Supreme Court jurists had justice and the rights of the accused in mind when they overturned the 1993 murder conviction of Carl Laurie, after whom the list was named. The court ruled that prosecutors should have disclosed to the defense that one of the officers who testified against Laurie had something in his history that might have been favorable to the defense. That kind of information must be disclosed, the court found in a ruling that the legislature later backed up with the passage of a law to that effect.

Here’s the problem with the county attorneys’ decision not to share their lists: If a local prosecutor is relying on an officer to gain a conviction in a case, he or she may have no way of knowing – without access to the Laurie list – that the officer has credibility issues. And if local prosecutors don’t know, how can they share that information with defense attorneys to comply with the Supreme Court ruling and the law? Frankly, putting the burden on local prosecutors to call around and find out if Officer X is on the list smacks of obstructionism on the part of county attorneys.

Not sharing the information locally, we think, creates at least the appearance of a two-tiered system of justice: The one at the state and county levels, where prosecutors have the Laurie list in hand and can make the required disclosures to defense lawyers; and another at the local level where prosecutors and defense attorneys are kept in the dark.

Even if there is no conspiracy among cops and prosecutors to keep the Laurie lists out of local hands in the state’s 10 counties, there’s also little about the way the lists are currently handled that suggests county prosecutors are motivated by a desire to see justice done, either.

The interests of fairness and uniform enforcement of the law require that all prosecutors have the list: State, county and, yes, even local.

Newsletter