In the Duke rape case, the virtual immunity that has protected rogue prosecutors from consequences for their contempt for the most basic precepts of our legal system has finally been breached. Still, it has cost the three victims $3 million in legal fees, and it is unlikely that the prosecutor will go to prison.

In Maine's Dennis Dechaine case, prosecutors ignored other suspects; provided an incomplete autopsy report; blocked DNA testing; lost fingerprints; blocked findings by their own mental experts; put detectives on the stand whose testimony conflicted with their notes; incinerated potential DNA evidence after an appeal had been filed; suppressed a report on DNA testing; and more. And the attorney general's special commission, for reasons not explained, found nothing objectionable in this record. So far this travesty has cost Dechaine 19 years in prison, while the real killer goes free. The old oxymoron "Southern justice" has now been replaced by "Maine justice."

William Bunting

Whitefield