Typically, any information that may present any doubt concerning theguilt of a defendant, according to a reasonable juror, is deemed exculpatoryevidence in most cases. Unlike prosecutors, defendants can’t call on police agencies to help them investigate and respond to evidence they find out about for the first time at trial. Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is the chief source of law governing discovery in federal criminal cases. Discovery rules generally distinguish between raw information like names of witnesses, police reports, and drug or alcohol test results, and attorney theories and strategies.
Obviously, there are significantly higher stakes present in criminal cases and that key difference plays out in the rules of discovery. But the prosecutor won’t have to turn over the memorandum. This rule basically implies that in a civil action, if a hearing commissioner is authorized by all parties to conduct the proceedings instead of a judge, upon a request for a review or appeal, the motion must first be reviewed by a Superior Court judge to the same standard as a motion for appeal on a Superior Court Judge to the Court of Appeals, but the right to appeal to the higher courts still remains.Currently the two main approaches for identifying responsive material on custodian machines are: First, as most would assume,discovery allows a defendant a better chance, or fairer chance, duringtrial. Additionally, while expanded criminal discovery laws help ensure a more fair and accurate legal system, criminal defense attorneys in jurisdictions with more open discovery rules report a more efficient process, with fewer mistrials, reversals and retrials, and more cases resolved earlier. After a defendant is arraigned the prosecutor must produce copies of (or provide access to) the specific evidence in the State’s possession that the prosecutor believes can prove the defendant’s guilt of the charged crime. The intention of the discovery period isa two-pronged attempt by the courts to better the criminal justiceprocess. Sure, advance disclosure promotes fairer trial outcomes, but it also promotes case settlement, which saves judicial time and resources. The latter is called “work product.” Prosecutors don’t have to turn over their work product to defendants—otherwise, it just wouldn’t be fair. The government does not need to hand over these files to the defense if they will not be relevant to the defendant’s case. Sometimes the prosecution might disclose certain items, such as the police report of the incident leading to the arrest, before certain other items, such as forensic analysis.
Federal criminal discovery is governed by three sources of law: Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Supreme Court cases of Brady and Giglio, and the Jencks Act. This will contain any history of misconduct or complaints by people who interacted with the officer. Lawyers would be incentivized to hide their work or do less of itTraditionally, the prosecutor wasn’t entitled to information about a defendant’s case.