What does it mean to disclose exculpatory evidence?
The Jacob Chansley case presents the interesting question of how far the prosecution must go to disclose exculpatory evidence.
I’ve noticed in other cases that some prosecutors deal with the Brady rule (the requirement to disclose exculpatory evidence) by using a document dump – that is, giving the defense so much evidence that they will be unable to wade through it in time, or ever. Sometimes this dump is performed very late in the game; sometimes not. But generally the defense in a criminal case has limited resources, often very limited, and simply can’t sift through a mountain of evidence.
This may have been the situation in the case of Jan 6th “shaman” Chansley [emphasis mine]:
In a filing on Sunday, the DOJ said it provided the tapes to Chansley’s attorney during the discovery phase of Chansley’s trial in 2021, therefore satisfying the requirement of producing exculpatory evidence, or evidence favoring the defendant, to the defense counsel…
[The defense’s] Brady claim therefore fails at the threshold, because nothing has been suppressed,” the DOJ wrote, basing it on the claim that it had provided Watkins with the “necessary tools” to identify relevant CCTV evidence notwithstanding the voluminous discovery.
The DOJ has almost unlimited resources; the defense most certainly does not.
More:
[Chansley’s lawyer] Shipley says that the government may have violated Brady because they did not identify the tapes and their nature as potentially exculpatory evidence during Chansley’s trial. Making them available without making sure the defendant knows of the existence of the tapes may constitute suppression, according to Shipley.
“Suppression simply means it went undiscovered by the defendant beyond a point at which it could be made use of,” Shipley, who was a federal prosecutor for 21 years, said. “If the government produced thousands of hours of video and said, ‘There’s a minute of evidence that’s favorable to Jacob Chansley—good luck,’ that production is not an effective Brady disclosure.”
If the DOJ can play a game of hide-and-seek with exculpatory evidence, what good is the Brady rule?
While it’s somewhat possible that a future hypothetical Republican president may pardon Chansley (and others), I can’t imagine that any of the wholey corrupt apparatchiks of the current DOJ will ever be held to account for any of their malfeasance with regards to this case or any of the cases of the other J6 defendants.
I get the impression that there’s a generally apathy even among many Republican voters with regards to the treatment of the various January 6th individuals. It might be my imagination, but it’s as if many GOP voters just want the whole affair to be left in the past and for everyone to move on. Consequently they don’t really care that much about the complete lack of justice for these people. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Nonapod (3:52 pm) begins, “While it’s somewhat possible that a future hypothetical Republican president may pardon Chansley (and others), I can’t imagine that . . . ”
At this juncture, given the way events and underlying forces are unfolding, I can’t imagine a future Republican president, hypothetical or actual.
indeed
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/03/questioning_the_january_6_aftermath_.html
the goal seems to be crimethink
I’m with MJR here. Given the past elections, both 2018 and last year, I can’t see how there will ever be a Republican president again. Half the country are now “woke”, and the other half will be negated by election fraud.
I am no longer content, or happy, even, to be an American citizen, given the obvious, flagrant high-level corruption in the highest levels of the federal government. I respect and honor the America that was when I was young, when the Star-Spangled Banner was sung by everyone and the NBA did not deem China a glory hole.
I do not understand the many “woke” idiots and the obvious vote fraud which I endure in the USA, as physicsguy has pointed out above. These idiots are manipulated by the MSM, now a propaganda dispensary.
Let us perhaps recall that St. George Floyd was full of a lethal dose of fentanyl, had an enormously long criminal history, when Chauvin apprehended him. For which the cop is doing life in prison for a knee on the side of Floyd’s neck. Insanity. Everywhere one now reads Chauvin “murdered” him, which is utter nonsense.
St. George died of suicide by drug, not by a cop following official procedure. The official autopsy concluded that Floyd had a deadly dose of fentanyl in him. Chauvin “killed” a walking dead man. But St. George was black, Chauvin white. Racial justice!
Sorry to have rehashed the memories. Neo will disagree with me, I’m sure.
Blacks are 13% of us Americans. But we have ennobled them above all others, despite their wretched “culture” of abortion and single parenthood. I hope the Asian-American discrimination lawsuit against the Ivies has a just outcome.
In what you clipped, this stood out:
“exculpatory evidence, or evidence favoring the defendant”
Is it deliberately misleading, or just ignorance, do you think? Exculpatory is not evidence *favoring* the defendant, it’s evidence that clears the defendant of wrongdoing, proves his innocence. These days I actually wouldn’t be surprised to learn that either is the case- either the writer really doesn’t know what exculpatory means, or that they do but want to downplay that the DOJ is prosecuting someone when they have (and withheld) evidence that fully clears them.
I look at the DOJ as Javert and most Jan. 6th accused as Jean Val Jean. Les Deplorables are being railroaded with no justice.
The Constitution was designed to prevent this, but humans keep proving that the concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with justice for all is hard to maintain.
Well, it’s not completely lost until and unless the Democrats win in 2024. It’s time for all citizens who, believe in the Constitution to come to the aid of the nation. Things look bad but we can’t give up.
Kshoosh:
No, you are wrong.
This is the definition of exculpatory evidence:
Tending to – not “proving.”
Here’s an example from Wiki:
Cicero:
I have been quite consistent in saying that I think Chauvin was wrongly convicted, and that there was plenty of reasonable doubt that Floyd was murdered, and that I think that a fentnyl overdose was the causative agent. So there is no disagreement there.
However, Chauvin did not get a life sentence. His federal and state sentences run concurrently (see this). He would be in his mid-60s when he got out, perhaps minus some years for good behavior.
Lastly, they say “murder” because, legally, he was found guilty in a court of law (even though you and I agree he murdered no one). Of course, they were also using the word “murder” right from the start, to set up their successful propaganda campaign.
It should be a matter of law that ALL exculpatory and inculpatory evidence must be turned over to defense counsel at least one month before the onset of a trial. That Congress did not long ago create such a law is an injustice and calls into question the entire Justice System. Prosecutors should have been the very first to call for such a law and would have done so had they been interested even in the least in justice. The founders believed that it was better that the guilty go free then that the innocent be punished, which is the entire rationale for “innocent until proven guilty”. No less so than our politicians, many perhaps most lawyers and judges are in the system for the wrong reasons.
Are data mining tools available for voluminous discovery? Sounds like a business opportunity.