by TChris

When an adversarial relationship exists, it's generally unethical for a lawyer to contact an individual represented by another lawyer without that lawyer's permission. It's particularly offensive when a prosecutor goes behind a defense lawyer's back to attempt a plea bargain with the defense lawyer's client. That misstep prompted the Tennessee Supreme Court to suspend temporarily the law license of District Attorney General Bill Gibson, who wrote to murder defendant Christopher Adams, seeking his commitment to plead to a lesser charge, without going through Adams' lawyer.

An interesting comment posted to the "story chat" section of the linked story suggests that the Herald-Citizen, like many newspapers, has been lax in reporting the poor job performance of the district attorneys' office:

If only the Herald-Citizen had been reporting on all the injustice instead of empowering Gibson and eating the pizza he drops by the newsroom on weekends.