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New York state changed their laws on January 1, 2020, to alter the previous practice where the government only had to provide the evidence they had to defense l
by jellicle 7y ago
New York state changed their laws on January 1, 2020, to alter the previous practice where the government only had to provide the evidence they had to defense lawyers on the day of the trial, and only if specifically requested by the defense.
The majority of people in jail in New York right now, today, had to accept/reject plea deals without seeing any of the governmental evidence against them.
It is to be hoped that the future of NY's justice system will be much fairer, but police unions are fighting hard against the new changes and they may well be repealed.
- GavinMcG 7y agoThe "only if specifically requested" is commonplace and requesting evidence is a routine part of any case. I'm all in favor of "automatic" discovery in criminal matters—I don't believe the prosecution should have an information advantage—but the fact that it wasn't previously required by law isn't evidence that it was broadly inadequate. Same goes for the deadlines. Sure, the law didn't set a specific timeline—but that's not evidence that prosecutors routinely "[dropped] 30 pages off in front of the defense 20 minutes before the trial [began]."
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoThe "dropped 30 pages" is a pretty common complaint for public defenders. Now, it could be that they keep losing the cases, but it's pretty common for the state to only provide evidence on the day of a trial and often don't point to exculpatory evidence or exclude it from the documents being provided.