Radley “Agitator” Balko’s year-end poll is for “Worst Prosecutor of the Year.” The contenders are an utterly worthless, powermad lot who should probably all be disbarred:

• Mary Beth Buchanan, the power behind the first Federal obscenity prosecutions in 20 years as well as “Operation Pipe Dreams” wherein she managed to jail Tommy Chong for making bongs.

• Forrest Allgood, the Mississippi DA more than happy to use scientifically discredited “experts” to convict people who may in fact be innocent.

• Douglas County, Georgia DA David McDade, a/k/a the man behind the Genarlow Wilson debacle that saw a 17-year-old convicted of rape for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old. Wilson has since been released by the Georgia Supremes, but McDade has no regrets.

• The Virginia attorneys behind the Rack-n-Roll railroading in Manassass Park; it’s a long story, but Balko has the background for you. The summary is “government attempting to put a bar out of business through dubious allegations of drug trafficking, and then arranging for said trafficking to occur.”

• Scott Andringas, former Florida state’s attorney for Pinellas, Pasco, and Monroe counties. Andringas is the man who sought to imprison Richard Paey, a paraplegic and MS patient in chronic pain whom they knew well was not in fact trafficking in the pills he obtained through potentially dubious means. Paey has since been granted a full pardon by the newly non-Bush Florida governor.

What a bunch, eh? Your tax dollars at work, people. Given the government more power always means more people like these will seek to abuse it. People like this pose a much, much larger threat to our way of life than terrorists in Afghanistan.