...the District Attorney accountable to? Who is his boss?

I confess my ignorance regarding that position. Is he an elected official? Appointed by the governor? Perhaps we should be confronting whoever he works for to get some answers.

What is his professional background anyway?

I have found the DA's actions in these cases offensive and especially his attitude toward domestic and sexual abuse crimes. He seems to have an attitude that is not in line with Governor Parnell's commitment to fighting these types of abuse. The DA has seemed to forget that he is working for the people of Alaska and is the victim's last hope for justice in these cases. If he does not care or put in the effort, who will? I hope the Governor will realize his mistake and appoint someone who shares his commitment to seeking justice in in these matters. I applaud the Empire for this editorial and think it was a long time coming.

Perpetrators of home invasions, assault and robbery go uncharged. This DA does not have the best interest of this community or of justice in mind. He should be run out of town on a rail. The citizens in this district are at risk as long as he remains in that position.
Very bold of the Juneau Empire to take a stand and comment on this issue. Kudos to the editors.

what is this a public lynching? We are lucky to have a DA that prosecutes based on the facts of the case and our laws and not public pressure.

Who wrote the editorial? It most certainly did not come from someone at the empire, it
sounds to me like someone has an axe to grind.

The DA is not some nameless, faceless person out on a mission to do Juneau harm. He is a member of our community. He has raised children here. He is a highly respected member of the legal community (at least he was until recently).

While I too would like an explanation as to how the DA arrived at some of his decisions (I imagine there is a whole lot to each of these stories that we don't know), I would also like to see some of this rage directed to the appropriate place: THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE.

The District that the DA covers is almost all of Southest. They have three (3!) lawyers in their office to process 600(!) cases annually. How is that even logisically possible? There are only 260 work days in the year. How is someone supposed to prepare and try 200 cases with what amounts to 60 days available for prep time (and that is also assuming that each trial only lasts a day)?!

The Governor should be ASHAMED that he isn't providing the funding that our District needs. To come out tough against domestic violance is noble. To not provide the funding to try all of the cases where there is enough evidence to get an indictment is shameful!

Yes, by all means let's run the criminal justice system based on anonymous internet comments and an editorial from a newspaper who gets new staff weekly.

Lest you think I'm a fan or friend, in fact I am one of his adversaries in the criminal justice system. The Empire's editorial is misplaced, misguided and misinformed. There are often nuances and facts behind a prosecutor's decision to indict, to try, or to settle a case. A case might be weakened by a faulty search warrant, good police work but insufficient evidence, witness testimony that wouldn't be believed by a jury ... or many other aspects not readily apparent to the uninformed eyes of someone such as a newspaper editor.

Brower doesn't play favorites, has no political axe to grind or hidden agenda. He is fair, open-minded, terrifically smart and seasoned in his reasoning.

It has become fodder for the masses and the media to take potshots at cops, prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers and defendants ... without any understanding of what the totality of facts are in a case. I have seen many cases that, superficially, should have resulted in conviction and a stiff sentence, but which were reduced or dismissed for a variety of reasonable reasons.

I have worked opposite a hundred or more prosecutors. Brower is as good as one gets. I don't always agree with him, but I always come away from a case knowing he was fair and gave it thoughtfulness based on years of experience and a good legal mind.

Know all the facts before you judge. And there will be many times you must withhold judgment: Any prosecutor has to make some difficult decisions based on facts that he can't always reveal to the public.

The Empire editorial staff should know better. It was a crappy, thoughtless editorial.

The attack on Brower is levied against him by an editorial that uses the somewhat sinister "it’s a question a lot of people are asking" trick to suggest that there are mobs of protesters dusting off their pitchforks. I doubt it, since most Alaskans know that Mr. Brower's decisions, like those of any DA in our state, are guided by professional training and experience, not politics. Here in Alaska we don't elect district attorneys, like they do in many older states. In California, for example, papers are full of editorials that bully district attorneys into making decisions the paper thinks they should make, or force them to hold press conferences explaining themselves, if they don't want to lose their job in the next election. By the time Alaska became a state there was a better awareness of the dangers of a system where prosecutors are elected, so a system was put in place that would elevate to the job good lawyers, not good campaigners, and would prevent politics and public opinion from influencing decision-making by prosecutors. Apparently the notion that cases should be handled competently and with justice, not re-election of a DA as the goal, prevailed. Our DA's are insulated from public pressure so that they can do what is right and not what public opinion dictates in a given case. They are not even political appointees, they are just employees. This is probably a good thing. Our criminal justice system keeps lots of information private while a case is pending in order to promote a just outcome, prevent verdicts from being overturned, protect the rights of victims, etc., and that means the public forms opinions based primarily on news media reports and editorials. This is the first time I've seen a newspaper editorial in Alaska even suggest that a DA has an obligation to come forward and explain a decision in a case to the public, so I "googled" the author and found reason to guess that he might not have been here long enough to know that Alaska differs from California in at least this one small way. Our DA's are bully-proof, thank goodness.

Hunter, the 'body of work' to which you refer consists entirely of the cases you yourself have read about in the Empire. Judging from today's editorial, that reporting has been anything but impartial. (In fact, even before today I concluded that the reporting was laced with inaccurate innuendo, often to the point of editorializing rather than straight factual reporting.)

In other words, not only are you not at all familiar with the other 99% of the cases prosecuted by Mr Brower and his staff, you base your opinion not on a dispassionate and thorough examination of all the facts, you base it on a newspaper article or several.

The media has huge power, but with it comes an even greater responsibility to report all the facts completely and fairly. When there is an absence of such completeness, the paper should avoid conjecture and opinion that can so easily influence tender and impressionable minds such as Hunter's. In all my years of reading the Empire, never have I read so much consistently slanted reporting. The editorial today was the icing.

As to my preferring as prosecutor who makes my life easy, Hunter further reveals his ignorance about how things work in Juneau and the criminal justice system in general: An experienced, fair prosecutor makes my life easier not because he's a pushover (there are quite a few defendants who would strongly disagree with such an assessment of Brower,) but because he knows the evidentiary worth of a case and doesn't needlessly screw around.

Turkey neck armchair quarterbacks. The world is full of them.

"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

has surprised me with this one. This Empire editorial is basically repeating what has been said innumerable times by so very many of those who have followed this terrible story of a trusted public servant who betrays not only his community, but his very own family as well. As for pusillanimous_puffin (your name is an out-right rip-off of "Persnickety Persimmon", but hey, it's catchy, and to each his own...hmmmn maybe you are actually PP and this is just one of your alias'?:): you are almost certainly a PD, and I appreciate you rising to Brower's defense so readily, but the fact remains his actions have come under intense scrutiny over this. At the very least, the DA needs to accept his wake-up call from this. The Hoonah child-porn thing is pretty much an example of an inexcusable error, and could be considered misconduct sufficient to discharge. If the DA remains arrogant about it all, he should definitely be fired. This isn't about his integrity, that you so eloquently defended - it's about performance.

I direct these questions not only to the pundits in this commentary section but also to the reporter(s) and Empire staff:

1. Have you reviewed all the police reports, which include witness statements, police narrative and summaries of physical evidence?

2. Have you reviewed all the applicable recordings of witnesses?

3. Have you reviewed the grand jury testimony and findings?

4. Do you have any legal training whatsoever -- much less years of experience -- to make a decision one way or the other about the worth of a prosecution?

No. I didn't think so.

The reporter(s) undoubtedly took their information from their own one-sided interviews with only some of the witnesses -- if that -- and of course those witnesses had their own biases. A diligent reporter would have reviewed the court file, except the court file contains only pleadings and at best an incomplete perspective of the case.

And you, the pundits ... I'm guessing not one of you got your information from any source other than the Empire or from distant drums and smoke signals, otherwise known as 'rumors.'

Ah! Yet a modern day example of the process of witch hunting. Small minds. Rumors. Partial facts. And the human need to find a scapegoat.

(Wrong on both counts, Wolf.)

This cannot be rationalized, no matter how or who tries. Charges should never have been filed! No way now for the DA to back out and save face. It’s too bad that a tragedy has to now play out,something will have to surface? From anywhere handy, and there will be no winners, not the DA, not the family, and not the community. There exists no high road here. How sad!

I know you're emotionally invested in this, being close to the action and all... but gee whiz fella, allow me to respond to your white knight charge, since you opened the door so widely.

My comment as a pundit, was that a large number of Juneauites raised this very question - the same question raised by the Empire. Obviously, there would have to be something the public isn't aware of, regarding why this beast wasn't charged with sexual crimes against minors, or Brower would already be run out his job. The point is, the public has a right to know. When we give a gun to a police officer, and imbue him or her with the authority and power to uphold the law and protect our community - -and then that officer profoundly betrays that trust, and in addition the sacred trust of his family, well then, the majority of citizens would want that individual made an example of and prosecuted to the absolute full extent of the law.

If you think I'm wrong about the Hoonah thing being incompetence, well, then I guess I hope you don't ever make a judgeship, and certainly not a prosecutor.

I'm not witch-hunting Mr. Brower. I'm saying he better get his act together as a DA, because of his mis-handling of the Hoonah thing, for reasons previously given. As for this corrupt officer child rapist thing, I'm saying Brower's actions should be looked into more closely by the AG, because the public, for which the AG works, is quite upset about about the outcome of this debacle, and rightly so.

Suffice to say that I disagree with you that I was wrong on both counts, whatever that means...