What happens when prosecutors offer opposing versions of the truth?

One can understand why the legal system would be initially reticent to rule that conflicting truths can't exist in separate cases. New facts emerge, different teams may come to different conclusions, etc. You don't necessarily want a situation where one single incongruity between different prosecutions leads to mistrial or overturning verdicts. But, unfortunately, and entirely forrseeably, this allowance becomes totally abused. As the article says, stuff like this becomes a matter of gamesmanship, in which abuse of the system is almost seen as a sign of one's cleverness as a prosecutor.

The more I learn about the way specifically criminal law often operates, the more disturbing it is. If people knew half of what I've learned just through relatively casual reading, they would understand just how fragile their place as an upstanding citizen is in society, have a lot more sympathy for those caught up in the criminal justice system, and be far less wont to advocate the kind of treatment people meet in that system.

Good question. I have another question related to this.

What happens to the democracy in a country when lying by a prosecutor is not punishable and prosecutors are allowed to lie under oath in court?

Well according to legal psychologisy Peter van Koppin it would undermine the entire legal system which is based on the presumption that a prosecutor always tells he truth. What do you think?

In the Netherlands in 2020 a law was passed that stated anyone who has a profession that requires secrecy cannot be found guilty of perjury if lying in court under oath. All of Dutch government has roles and issues that are declared secret. Including prosecutors. Pretty good law for a country that hosts the international criminal court.

I was harrassed for more than 10 years between a proxy of the Dutch government (Left neighbour) and someone that was busted for growing weed in 2005 (Right neighbour) the two of whom I lived literally between. I was then in turn harrassed "because I complained". After 10 years I forced a criminal stalking case to court by use of the national ombudsman. It took 5 years to get the case to court, one year short of expiring. I had more than 600 videos of harrassment in the evidence plus much more.

The prosecutor then lied in court and without vast amounts of evidence and portrayed me as a criminal.

Later I investigated and found the that prosecutor was in fact pretended to prosecute his own asset so he could make the case fail. The entire 10 years of harrassment was by a civilian being run in an illegal way and protected by the Dutch Openbare Ministerie.

I filed criminal charges against the prosecutor. That was dismissed, I failed an appeal to the attorney general, that was dismissed, and in the dismissal stated that a prosecutor could not be guilty of perjury. So obstruction of justice, like in the watergate affair in the US is not a thing anymore in the Netherlands.

Note, the prosecutor concerned had been found guilty of lying in court before (2013) but it didn't affect his following promotions in the slightest.

Last question, what do you then do if no single journalist will run with your story? (They would not even respond to my E-mails). This included all of the major papers in the Netherlands and the Washington Post and The Guardian.

No human rights organisation would help, I tried several. Human rights watch springs to mind. They all said the same thing, we cannot deal with individual cases. The police were told they were not allowed to respond to my calls and they were not allowed to investigate anything. After a while I was told that I was not allowed to file police reports anymore (Aangifte doen). All cases were summarily dismissed till I started talking about an appeal (Artikel 12 procedure), then they just didn't handle them. Sounds to me not a situation that could affect anyone unlucky enough and not a single incident type of thing.

Final statement: Another of the prosecutors involved in the obstruction of justice was implicated in the jailing of 9 innocent people with fabricated evidence, one of whom committed suicide. A 6 part documentary was produced about this (Called "de Villamoord" or "The villa murder"). That had no influence whatsoever on the prosecutors involved or their further careers which involved promotion to very high places.