By Frank Parlato
Stop Calling the Prosecutor ‘Justice’
The name is a masterstroke of propaganda.
An honest name would be the “Department of Prosecution.” Its function: to act as the government’s advocate and win convictions.
The current name – the Department of Justice – implies their job is justice. But everyone knows that justice is supposed to be the outcome of an adversarial but fair trial (prosecution vs. defense), not the characteristic of one side.
Calling the prosecution the “Department of Justice” presumes the outcome it seeks is always just. Justice is supposed to appear at the end of a fair trial. Call the prosecution “Justice,” which is the outcome of the trial, then you bless every ambition it has. If that is the case, why bother to have trials at all?
Suppose you had a football game and you called one team The Winners? Slap “Department of Justice” on the prosecution, and you’ve declared in advance who’s right. “Department of Justice” assumes what it aims to prove.Imagine a courtroom where justice is meant to emerge from two opposing forces. Now, rename one of those forces “Justice.”
It frames every prosecution as righteous and every acquittal as a failure of the system.
A word has been stolen by the government’s half of the fight. A theft of language that assigns virtue to power before the evidence is heard.
Too often, the department’s activities are the opposite of just.
- It overcharges and seeks longer sentences to force plea deals (the trial penalty).
- It hides evidence that could help the defense.
- It incentivizes witnesses to lie by offering them reduced sentences or immunity.
- It employs prosecutors who are promoted based on their conviction rate, not their “justice rate.”
To call this win-at-all-costs adversarial institution the “Department of Justice” is an example of Orwellian doublethink—where the name of something is the opposite of its true nature.
The Department says its duty is to ‘seek justice, not just wins’; the incentive structure too often rewards convictions.
Even if you believe the Department of Justice is not ever weaponized, not overly powerful, and always populated with ethical prosecutors, the name is still deceptive.
Its job is not to ensure justice.
Renaming it the Department of Prosecution would signal to the public (and the jury): “This is the government’s team of lawyers whose job is to convict people it accuses of crimes.” An agency whose primary function is to accuse, prosecute, and imprison.
To smell its Orwellian odour is to take the first step in seeing the federal criminal justice system as it truly is.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
