This morning, the Associated Press reported that the Missouri Supreme Court has changed the Rules of Professional Conduct to explicitly allow prosecutors to collaborate on undercover investigations without exposing themselves to sanctions for professional misconduct.
The amendment also codifies Missouri prosecutors’ right to lie to suspects in order to solve a case. Yesterday, The Open File highlighted a case out of Ohio where a County Prosecutor’s Office investigator lied to suspects in order to extract confessions that now appear to be shaky.
The AP story further reports:
Missouri is among 10 states to make similar revisions to its conduct codes for lawyers. Many came in response to a Colorado case in which a prosecutor’s law license was suspended after he posed as a public defender to elicit a murder confession.
If you are aware of such revisions in your state, please let us know by emailing us at: openfilewebsite@gmail.com.