I thought this was an interesting idea ...

Multnomah County's misdemeanor prosecutors get to tackle a cold homicide case

Published: Thursday, July 28, 2011

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian

Over a six-month period, up to 10 Multnomah County prosecutors who usually handle misdemeanor cases were asked to dig into an unsolved Portland homicide.

They read stacks of crime scene reports, pored over transcripts of witness interviews and examined the evidence collected.

Then, they were asked to come up with investigative leads to pursue.

They met about once a month with senior prosecutors, and after about half a year, they shared their ideas with Portland police cold case investigators.

The unusual exercise proved not only valuable as a training exercise for many young prosecutors, but their direction helped Portland cold case investigators obtain a murder indictment this month. David McDonald, 38, faces murder and attempted aggravated murder charges in the 1996 gang-related killing of a 22-year-old man gunned down in Woodlawn Park.

Read the full article for more details.

Reminds me (at least a little) of how things operate in Korea - the prosecutors completely dictate how the police should do their investigation - what evidence to look for, which witnesses to talk to, etc. The police are largely at the mercy of the prosecutors in Korea, though, and there seems to be more mutual distrust rather than cooperation.

Great job, Oregon!