Editorial Comment by Former DOJ Tax Prosecutor on The Federal Prosecutor’s Decision Not to Charge (10/17/25)

DOJ Tax Alumni may be interested in this Editorial Comment by a DOJ Tax Alumnus, Mike Romano: The Federal Prosecutor’s Decision Not to Charge (Justice Connection 10/17/25), here

. A somewhat long excerpt from the beginning:

The decision not to charge someone is a critical part of a prosecutor’s job, but it often goes unseen. I learned this first-hand during my 18 years as a DOJ prosecutor – prosecuting tax fraud across the country, violent crimes in Washington, D.C., then January 6 cases with the Capitol Siege Section, and later public corruption cases with the Public Integrity Section (before this administration dismantled it.

Criminal charges, after all, come with a host of consequences, whether or not the person charged is ever convicted. Police may take the person into custody, depriving them of their liberty, even if only for a few hours. They may be compelled to appear in court and sit through a trial, both of which are further deprivations of liberty. That person will need a defense attorney, the cost of which can be astronomical. And the mere fact of criminal charges, and an arrest record, can cause real harm to a person’s reputation and employability, even if that person is never convicted.

Every federal prosecutor I worked with took the decision to charge—or, not to charge—extremely seriously. And when an investigation convinced me that no crime had been committed, or the wrong person had been accused, I was proud not to bring charges, or to dismiss charges that were unwarranted.

Doing this was my legal, ethical, and moral obligation; it was, in my view, the sort of exercise that made the Department’s use of power legitimate.

Justice Department prosecutors have a guide called the Principles of Federal Prosecution, which helps them determine when a case should or should not be brought. One of those principles is the following:

[A]s a matter of fundamental fairness and in the interest of the efficient administration of justice, no prosecution should be initiated against any person unless the attorney for the government believes that the admissible evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a guilty verdict by an unbiased trier of fact.

Romano's editorial comments echo the foundational speech by Attorney Robert Jackson later Supreme Court Justice) in 1940, titled The Federal Prosecutor, DOJ link here; alternative link here. (I provide an alternative link because I can't be sure it will stay on the DOJ website since its sentiments are not the sentiments of the current powers that be in DOJ.)