## Facts

- Deborah Hadley, a U.S. Postal Service employee, had a workplace confrontation with William Kinder, the acting supervisor at her facility.
- Hadley alleged Kinder physically pushed her; Kinder contended he was attempting to reprimand her for not working.
- Hadley filed a New Jersey municipal-court criminal complaint charging a disorderly-persons offense carrying potential penalties up to a $1,000 fine and six months’ imprisonment.
- Because Kinder was a federal employee acting within the scope of his duties, he removed the municipal proceeding to federal court.
- After removal, the municipal prosecutor declined to pursue the charge.
- Under then-existing New Jersey Municipal Court Rule 7:4-4(b), Hadley retained private counsel to prosecute the municipal complaint in the name of the State.
- Kinder moved to dismiss, arguing that allowing the complainant’s privately retained attorney to function as prosecutor created an unconstitutional conflict of interest and denied due process.

## Issues

1. Whether permitting a complaining witness’s privately retained attorney to prosecute a criminal case when the public prosecutor declines violates the defendant’s Fourteenth Amendment due process right to a fundamentally fair prosecution.
2. Whether the structural conflict between a private lawyer’s loyalty to an interested complainant and the neutrality expected of a public prosecutor renders the prosecution constitutionally invalid, implicating Sixth Amendment fair-trial protections.

## Decision

- The district court granted Kinder’s motion to dismiss.
- The court held that, in these circumstances, prosecution by the complainant’s privately retained attorney under Rule 7:4-4(b) was unconstitutional.
- The court concluded that the private-prosecution arrangement created an impermissible conflict of interest inconsistent with prosecutorial neutrality and fundamental fairness.

## Legal Principles

- Due process requires criminal prosecutions to be conducted by a disinterested prosecutor who acts on behalf of the public, not an advocate whose loyalty and financial relationship run to a private complainant.
- A private attorney retained by an interested complaining witness has a structural conflict when acting as prosecutor because the attorney’s professional duties and incentives are aligned with the complainant’s objectives rather than the public interest.
- When the state authorizes a complainant’s lawyer to wield prosecutorial authority without meaningful public oversight, the risk of biased charging decisions and trial tactics is constitutionally unacceptable, particularly where incarceration is possible.
- Constitutional infirmity may arise from the conflicted prosecutorial role itself, without a showing of case-specific misconduct, where the prosecution’s structure undermines fairness.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed the municipal criminal proceeding after finding that allowing the complaining witness’s privately retained attorney to prosecute under Rule 7:4-4(b) compromised prosecutorial neutrality and denied the defendant due process in a criminal case carrying potential jail time.


State of New Jersey v. Kinder, 701 F. Supp. 486 (D.N.J. 1988)