"Every criminal trial is a competition between the prosecution and the defense. The judge has relatively less dominant role than in other countries and a lot of times, we have the guilt and innocence of people decided by juries, unless of course there's a plea bargain. This means prosecutors are crucially important because they're the ones who decide whether a case is going to go through, and what shape that case is going to take."

- Hadar Aviram, Professor of Law, UC HastingsThis week on Life of the Law, our team met up in the studios of KQED to talk about the law, moral luck, and prosecutorial discretion in America.Hadar Aviram, Professor of Law at UC Hastings and a member of our Advisory Panel of Scholars; Brittny Bottorff, Attorney with the Mayor Law Group and Chair of our Advisory Board; Tony Gannon, Life of the Law's Senior Producer; Jessica McKellar, software developer, author, and member of our Advisory Board; Nancy Mullane, Life of the Law's Executive Producer and host; and Osagie Obasogie Professsor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health.Production Notes:

In-Studio: Prosecuting Discretion was edited and produced by Tony Gannon. Special thanks to Hadar Avisram, Brittny Bottorff, Tony Gannon, Jessica McKellar, Nancy Mullane, and Osagie Obasogie for joining us at KQED studios in San Francisco.Our post production editors are Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle and Rachael Cain.  Music in this episode was composed by Ian Coss. Howard Gelman of KQED Radio in San Francisco was our engineer.This episode of Life of the Law was funded in part by grants from the Law and Society Association, and the National Science Foundation.

© Copyright 2017 Life of the Law. All rights reserved.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices