What is the history of rules requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence? I was surprised to discover that Brady v. Maryland was decided as recently as 1963. Not knowing enough about the context in which it was decided, I am having trouble understanding exactly what changed as a result of the decision. Brady only addresses the disclosure of exculpatory evidence, and specifically in the context of sentencing rather than determination of guilt. (The case was remanded for resentencing consistent with the decision, but the conviction was affirmed.) I have not been able to find out what the rule was in the U.S. prior to Brady. Pre-Brady, was there any duty to disclose exculpatory evidence? Is Brady establishing this duty for the first time, or is Brady's contribution to extend this duty to apply to evidence that might only affect sentencing? Or it it significant for some other reason? If there was a Pre-Brady duty to disclose exculpatory evidence, when was it established? I have read the original decision but I find it hard to interpret, so here I am. I imagine that the rules about disclosure of inculpatory evidence must be much older and much stricter. Is this so? What are the major landmarks on this topic?
In 1935, the Supreme Court held in Mooney v. Holohan that the prosecution lying about evidence betrays the duty of the prosecutor to seek justice. As such, any evidence that could be in the defense's favor must be revealed to the defense (the defense is entitled to see all evidence against the accused that will be used in trial... and need not turn over evidence that supports the prosecution). Thus, withholding evidence that does not support the prosecution is a lie of omission and thus still lying in court. When this happens, a new trial must be conducted with all new evidence in play. Brady extends this as Brady was convicted on Felony Murder (i.e. Brady was committing another crime and due to this, someone was killed) and given the death penalty. In this case, while Brady admitted that the victim died during the course of the robbery, he maintained he should not be sentenced to death as it was solely the actions of his partner, Donald Bobit, that lead to to the victim's death. The court did not find evidence of this statement and sentenced Brady and Bobit to death. Evidence supporting Brady (a confession by Bobit that he and he alone killed the victim) was withheld from Brady's defense at the time of sentencing and the state held on appeal that this was not a violation of Mooney as Brady was still guilty of the accused crime. The Supreme Court overturned this and ruled that evidence of a mitigating factor could be material to the sentencing still counts as exculpatory evidence and the prosecutor must turn it over. Brady's sentence was vacated, but he was still guilty of the crime he was accused of (committing the original crime of Robbery where someone died during the course of his actions, even though he had no direct hand in that person's death). In effect, Brady was still guilty but not deserving of the Death Sentence, just as he claimed in his appeal.
Prosecutors have discretion The plea bargain that a prosecutor makes with an alleged criminal is up to the prosecutor subject to the limitations in Brady v United States 397 U.S. 742 (1970). Plea bargains are subject to the court’s approval but there’s nothing here that would obviously derail this deal. However, the FBI is not the only player here. The DA’s in each of the “7 [US] states” are going to want to prosecute as well.
united-states Is a personal text (like a diary), submitted without the consent of the author, admissible evidence? Usually, it is admissible evidence. There is no legal right to keep your diary private. Production of a diary may be compelled by subpoena and admitted into evidence subject only to general considerations regarding whether particular entries in the diary are inadmissible for some other reason (e.g. lack of relevance, they recite the contents of an otherwise privileged discussion, they contain hearsay, they recite the terms of a settlement offer, the recite inadmissible prior act evidence, etc.). If the diary revealed information that could place the diarist at risk of criminal prosecution, the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination could arguably be claimed even in a civil case, but at the risk of an adverse inference to be drawn from that decision in civil matters. I haven't ever seen how that issue is resolved legally.
See jury-nullification. I'm not a legal historian, so I can't say for sure what the laws on jury acquittals were at that time in that jurisdiction. However, when a jury has final discretion to acquit a defendant of a crime that's it: They can effectively ignore laws if they want to acquit someone. Such acquittals do not set a precedent or have any bearing outside of the trial in which they issue their verdict.
Defendants cannot switcheroo whenever they want. There are good reasons why this is almost never done. The lawyer in any of these scenarios is violating an ethical duty of candor to the tribunal, if it is done without court permission (which is unlikely to be granted), even if the client suggested or insisted upon the idea. The lawyer would be responsible for his or her client's actions by cooperating in it, rather than calling out his client in open court over the objections of the client to prevent the switcheroo from working, as the lawyer would have an ethical obligation to do. I would not really consider this to be a gray area. The relevant ethical rules and the related official commentaries to them are quite clear, even if they are not absolutely perfectly clear. Those rules create an affirmative duty of an attorney to prevent his or her client from misleading members of a tribunal (either a judge or a jury or both). Cooperating with this scheme could (and likely would) result in professional licensure related sanctions ranging from a private censure to disbarment for the lawyer, just as it did in the linked 1994 case. Also, while a "not guilty" verdict was entered in the 1994 case, the prosecution would have a good chance of success if they demanded that the judge declare a mistrial, and also a good chance of avoiding double jeopardy limitations in this situation, because the mistrial arose from the actions of the defendant trying to bring about the situation. On the other hand, if this trick worked so well that the prosecutors came to the conclusion that their primary witness linking the defendant to the crime was wrong and that the defendant was not actually the person who committed the crime, the prosecutors would have an ethical duty to not attempt to prosecute the individual whom the prosecutors now believed to be factually innocent (the analysis is actually a bit more complex than that, but that is the gist of it). The defendant and the attorney could (and likely would) also each be held in direct, punitive contempt of court by the judge for this conduct, allowing them to be summarily punished by imprisonment or a fine to an extent similar to a misdemeanor violation, on the spot, without a trial other than an opportunity to explain themselves to the judge in a sentence or two each, since it would be conduct in violation of the good order of the court and disrespectful of its rules and decorum conducted in the actual courtroom in the presence of the judge. Each could easily end up spending several months in jail on the spot for that stunt and perhaps a $1,000 fine each, if the judge was sufficiently displeased. There would be a right to appeal this contempt of court sanction, but the contempt of court punishment would almost surely be upheld on appeal in these circumstances. In a case where the criminal defendant faces extremely severe sanctions if found guilty, such as the death penalty or life in prison, and the defense attorney was a self-sacrificing idealist or close family member of the criminal defendant, one could imagine the defense attorney and client deciding that the professional and contempt citation sanctions were worth being punished with, in order to save the life of the criminal defendant, if they also were convinced that this trick would work so well that the prosecutors would be persuaded of the criminal defendant's innocence sufficiently to not insist on retrying the criminal defendant in a new trial. This would be somewhat analogous to an intentional foul in basketball, but with much higher stakes. But, this would be an extraordinarily rare situation in court, because the punishment for this "intentional foul" in the courtroom are much more severe, and because the likelihood of it producing a beneficial result is much smaller. It isn't hard to understand why a successful switcheroo feels morally justified. It prevents a witness whose testimony would have been much less reliable than it actually would have been from being used to convict a criminal defendant who might conceivably be factually innocent. And it might be very hard to discredit the testimony of that witness in any other way in order to prevent a wrongful conviction of the criminal defendant. Eye witness misidentifications are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, and are especially common in death penalty cases because jurors are "death qualified" making them more pro-prosecution than a typical jury. Preventing innocent people from being convicted of crimes is one of several important values of the criminal justice system, and this is the instinct that probably motivated the dissents in the professional misconduct process in the 1994 case. But, the court system also strongly values candor on the part of attorneys, and likewise values not having the court systems be used to trip up witnesses who may sincerely think that they are telling the truth even if they are mistaken about the accuracy of their testimony, in a deceptive manner. In this situation, the latter candor consideration usually prevails, because the rules prohibiting this kind of conduct and scheme, which admits no "moral justification" or "necessity exception", are quite clear. In the same vein, a prosecuting attorney can be sanctioned (and has been on at least one occasion in Colorado) for not being truthful in communications to third parties, even when the lies are used to peacefully defuse a potentially deadly hostage situation. For attorneys, the duty of candor and truthfulness really knows no exceptions. Cops, in contrast, however, are allowed to lie in many circumstances to secure confessions or stop criminals.
A judge has the authority to determine what law applies to a case and to instruct the jury accordingly, and also has the authority to determine which evidence is admissible. Presentation of a defense, in practice, involves presentation of evidence supporting a legal theory. In order to be admissible in evidence in an evidentiary hearing or trial, the evidence must be relevant to a legal theory that is in some way connected to the evidence. If no reasonable juror could make a ruling establishing that a legally recognized defense was established based upon the proposed evidence (especially if the proposed evidence is prejudicial to the prosecution case on the basis of reasoning that is not a legally valid defense) it can be excluded. For example, evidence in support of the theory that the defendant murdered the victim because the murder victim raped the defendant's sister six years ago, might very well sway a jury to acquit the defendant. So a defense attorney might want to make this argument. But, this is not a legally recognized justification for murder, so evidence in support of this defense would be excluded as irrelevant by the judge. In federal court, and in states with rules of evidence based upon the federal rules of evidence, the primary legal authority behind this is Rule of Evidence 402: Rule 402. General Admissibility of Relevant Evidence Relevant evidence is admissible unless any of the following provides otherwise: the United States Constitution; a federal statute; these rules; or other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court. Irrelevant evidence is not admissible. Some states also have procedural notice requirements for certain kinds of affirmative defenses. For example, if someone is arguing an alibi, a notice of an intent to present this defense must be provided by the defense a certain number of days before trial, so that the prosecution can develop the very different in kind type of evidence needed to rebut that defense, rather than having someone acquitted due to surprise when rebuttal evidence exists but the prosecution doesn't know in advance to locate the necessary witnesses and evidence to rebut this kind of defense.
Was/is it permissible for judges in the US to talk ex-parte like that? No. Ex parte interactions of that sort are not allowed. See, for instance, Disciplinary Counsel v. Bachman, 2020-Ohio-732 (Dec. 18, 2020) and Maze v. Judicial Conduct Commission, 2019-SC-0691-RR (Dec. 17, 2020). An example of less recent decision but with a reporter citation number is Comm'n on Judicial Performance v. Bozeman, 302 So.3d 1217 (2020). For situations of imminent risk of irreparable harm, procedural law provides for ex parte motions and ex parte petitions, such as this granted petition for Personal Protection Order. See M[ichigan]CR 3.7003(G). But the scenarios you depict fall short of the necessity for which ex parte provisions are intended. do the above scenes in the movies essentially portray judicial misconduct? Yes. A judge's house is inappropriate for communicating, let alone ex parte, his ruling (I am not knowledgeable of the films but my understanding of your description is that that judge made the ruling on the application). As for The Untouchables, any evidence of jurors' &amp; judges' conflict of interest and likely bias has to be filed in court and comply with procedural law so that all parties have an opportunity to litigate the matter.
In a trial by judge (bench trial) that could certainly happen. Most substantial parts of the judicial process can be sealed, under numerous laws and theories. The U.S. FISA "Court" is notorious for operating virtually entirely in secret. Various laws allow for secret subpoenas or warrants, with the subjects on which they are served held criminally liable for violating the court's order for secrecy. In a trial by jury it would probably be impossible for an exonerating fact to be presented to the judge only, since the proper role of the jury is to decide all questions of fact in a case. Furthermore, a court can compel a witness to testify, with no requirement to mitigate the damages of such testimony. However, if the accused knew that an exculpatory fact could be provided by a witness, and that the witness might decline to give (honest) testimony to a jury, he would presumably waive his right to a jury trial, at which point the testimony could (in theory) be given only to the judge.