Discretion Versus Supersession: Calibrating the Power Balance Between Local Prosecutors and State Officials

In the last few years, increasing public support for criminal justice reform has resulted in the election of local prosecutors sympathetic to the movement. However, as some case studies ¿like Aramis Ayala in Orlando and Robert Shuler Smith in Jackson¿have demonstrated, reform-minded local prosecutors may face fierce resistance from their state's more traditional "tough-on-crime" legal establishment. This Comment surveys and discusses supersession, one of the underdiscussed methods that the legal establishment can use to curtail local prosecutors' discretion, and then advocates for the adoption of a uniform supersession standard that respects prosecutorial discretion and prevents illegitimate abuses of power.