. The group includes current state witnesses as well as Cathleen Latham, who’s charged in the indictment as well.Another lawyer with a potential conflict, according to Georgia prosecutors, is Chesebro lawyer Scott Grubman, who previously represented Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his wife, Patricia Raffensperger, who also are state witnesses.
But why do prosecutors care about any of these potential conflicts if theoretically they’re potentially bad for the defendants? In their notice, the prosecutors said they want the court to “inquire into these circumstances and take such appropriate remedial measures as it deems necessary to ensure that the rights of both witnesses for the State of Georgia and the Defendants in this case are preserved in accordance with” professional conduct rules. They wrote that they’re compelled to raise the potential conflicts, noting:
The State is so compelled not only because it is paramount that the District Attorney, as a minister of justice, must guarantee that the constitutional and statutory rights of all persons are preserved at every stage of a criminal proceeding, but also because the State’s failure to do so would be fundamentally at odds with every lawyer’s duties as “a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.
A simpler way to look at it is that prosecutors don’t want to rack up a bunch of convictions and then have them messed up on appeal because of any conflict issues raised after the fact.