“The Trials and Tribulations of Discovering Brady Violations During a CIU Review” was presented as part of the Conviction Integrity Unit series through subgrantee APA on February 25, 2021 at 3pm ET. According to a report released by the National Registry of Exonerations in September 2020, official misconduct contributed to the wrongful conviction of 54% of people who were later exonerated. And as one academic recently stated, even when faced with the fact that Brady violations all too often have contributed to the conviction of innocent people, they continue to plague the criminal justice system. However, as criminal justice stakeholders debate the prevalence of this type of official misconduct and what should be done about it, Conviction Integrity Units across the nation not only regularly face practical issues regarding the identification of such misconduct but they also must grapple with complicated questions such as: How does a CIU prove the misconduct occurred (must the offending prosecutor testify)? Did a particular mens rea lead to the suppression of Brady information (or is the culpable mental state of the prosecutor even relevant)? How do you explain to a victim that a conviction must be vacated because a prosecutor cheated (particularly when the evidence tells you the person convicted is in fact guilty)? Patricia Cummings from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, discussed various investigations conducted by the CIU in Dallas and Philadelphia—where CIU prosecutors reviewed files and interviewed witnesses only to discover “material” Brady information that had been suppressed for decades.
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