Prosecutorial Accountability 2.0

This Article describes the rhetorical and regulatory changes that characterize the new prosecutorial accountability, identifies the conditions that have enabled them to occur, and considers their implications. While identifying various necessary conditions, the Article argues that information technology has been the essential catalyst; the evolution could not be sustained without the aggregation, accessibility, and communication of data and commentary about prosecutorial misconduct that new information technology makes readily available to the public. Given the permanence of information technology in modern society, the Article concludes by cautiously predicting that the contemporary regulatory movement will be sustained; the pendulum will not swing back to the period when courts and the media presumed the integrity of prosecutors and counted on them to ameliorate the excesses and injustices of the police. Rather, the current pressure to hold prosecutors accountable will be ongoing.