Pursuant to Brady and Giglio, a prosecutor has an affirmative obligation to turn over all testimony and documents that are exculpatory or tend to impeach the credibility of a prosecution witness.
In layman's terms, a prosecutor has a duty to turn over all evidence of innocence to the defense, and failing to do so is a violation of the law and ethical rules.
I should note this includes expert reports, especially when the underlying evidence is of the "data dump" variety.
Unfortunately, it is extremely common for prosecutors to try to skirt this rule. Much like police protect one another, employees of some district attorneys are expected to cover these violations as an almost routine matter.
As prosecutors enjoy almost absolute judicial immunity, the regulations in the Rules of Professional Conduct are all that provide for sanctions in case of a violation. This measure has proved rather toothless as many state ethics boards, often composed of former prosecutors, are reluctant to issue sanctions.
Even in the most egregious violation of the Brady rule that I have seen, which occurred during the Duke lacrosse team case when ex-DA Nifong hid an exculpatory DNA report, the state ethics bar did not issue sanctions for that violation.
Credentials: I am not a lawyer, but I have worked as a paralegal for several years and captained a mock trial team for both high school and college. I have written documents that have been submitted in the courts after approval by attorneys, some specifically on this point.
Should there not be some mandate that state ethics boards be made up of approximately 50% prosecutorial and 50% defense attorneys? Ethics boards should exhibit the same adversarial process as the courts.
This was a very clear warning to all other state employees: if we sign your paychecks, you better help us throw people in prison when we want to - even if the facts don't support it. If you don't, we will not only fire you, but attempt to ensure that you never work again. It's a scary glimpse into the base nature of people attracted to jobs as prosecutors.
Prosecutors do serve a purpose in society. A small percentage of the people they incarcerate are actually dangerous and need to be restrained. However, the kinds of people that are attracted to spending their lives destroying the lives of other humans tend to be vindictive monsters and generally awful people, not unlike the worst of those they prosecute. I hope he sues for wrongful termination and is successful.
While the termination and conduct is reprehensible, nothing about this example involves facts relating to putting the defendant in prison. You seem to be sneaking your personal judgment on the specific case into that general sentiment.
>violated public records law for retaining documents,
I doubt that. Most public records laws I have ever seen explicitly state that if you are a State employee and you have documents which you know to be germane to an ongoing criminal investigation that they must not be destroyed, and that knowingly destroying documents in such a case is an offense.
You misread the source. Your interpretation would only make sense if the article read 'violated public records law by retaining documents.' This is a pretty elementary grammar mistake on your part.
Interesting to see this on the HN front page. Is it because of genuine technological interest in the IT aspect of this case? Or because of the prevalence of Ron-Paul-style racist "libertarians" among the HN membership?
This is because many IT workers deal with data, some of which present moral choices as they may document various wrongdoing. This poses certain questions before IT workers as to what they are to do in such situations and what the consequences may be. One recent case about it is the Snowden case, widely discussed here, another is this one.
I can't even think what this may have to do with racism other than you trying to play race card at a completely inappropriate occasion or just using "racist" as a general swear word.
A perhaps bad analogy: what if this were DNA evidence? Does the defense and prosecution both need to do their own analysis of a sample? Or does the data found by the prosecution automatically get shared to the defense?
"In March, the office investigated a security breach involving someone hacking computers to obtain disciplinary matters and personal health information about employees, according to Peek’s letter. That investigation followed news reports in February that Corey [the State Attorney] approved using about $342,000 in taxpayer dollars to upgrade pensions for herself and de la Rionda [the lead prosecutor]."
I find it disturbing that government employees in Florida can approve raising their own pensions.
He did not act properly. He should have informed the prosecutor of his concerns before starting to leak. Of course this may be more the fault of his lawyer that acted really inappropriately. It seems the lawyer had an axe to grind against the Attorney General so she might have decided to kind of sacrifice her client in order to embarrass her enemy.
Regarding the data, it is possible that the prosecutor decided the data is not relevant for the case and that there is no need to embarrass the victim who cannot defend himself.
There is no dispute that the victim was not armed at the time of the attack. Having died as the result of the attack he did not really have an opportunity to hide his gun afterwards. It being established that he was unarmed at the time of the attack, his relationship with guns before the attack is not really relevant. The fact that he had a picture of a gun on his cell is really irrelevant.
"Regarding the data, it is possible that the prosecutor decided the data is not relevant for the case and that there is no need to embarrass the victim who cannot defend himself."
That's a dangerous justification.
First, the prosecutor is not the arbiter of relevance. The evidence should be turned over, and then the judge can make a determination as to its relevance. Allowing prosecutors to decide the relevance of evidence in their care would open the door to myriad abuses.
For example, in a DNA case, what would stop a prosecutor from saying a third or fourth sample found that matched other individuals wasn't "relevant" to the case?
Second, the notion that the "victim... cannot defend himself" is not only factually incorrect but immaterial. The deceased, who has not yet been proven to be a victim of anything, has the power of the state, armed with billions of dollars, a prison system, and a small army of investigators to defend him. The defendant has only his counsel and his wits.
More importantly, damage to that person's reputation is not relevant to the prosecution of another individual. Our justice system is supposed to place a premium on the rights of the defendant, since the harm of incarcerating an innocent person is considered so grave. If the deceased's memory is tarnished by messages regarding previous violent actions, or purchases of deadly weapons, that is a price that must be borne to ensure the accused's right to a fair trial.
Finally, the bar to relevance is extremely low. The rules of evidence state that relevant evidence it is any item which makes a fact in dispute more or less likely to be true. Note that it does not set any minimum bar on how much the evidence would influence the case, only that it affect an issue in dispute, even in the most minute fashion.
In this case, it is the defense's contention that the deceased acted violently and in fact provoked the confrontation, and that the accused acted only in self defense. It is also their contention that the deceased reached for a firearm.
It is certainly relevant that the deceased's conversion indicate that he had knowledge of firearms, that he purchased deadly weapons in the past, and that had an admitted history of violence.
I'm sorry but it's patently not a leak if the defense attorney should have already had the information. Leaks involve information that is non-public/non-shared. The legal requirement was that this information was shared with the defense.
This is the same reason the NSA is not able to hide behind the state secrets clause for programs that are already public.
I hope this guys wins a lot of money in a wrongful termination suit. I would hope that this also results in the termination of the person abusing their position to terminate this guy.
People should absolutely never be punished when they are aiding justice, after all that is the responsibility of the prosecutor. A prosecutor should only be seeking a conviction for people they have every reason to believe is actually guilty. Padding your prosecutorial résumé by getting a win at the cost of justice should be a career ending move for a prosecutor. It's no different than a doctor breaking the hippocratic oath.
Another version of the story posted on CNN [1] has a slightly different version of events.
> Concerned that attorneys did not have all the information they needed to prepare the case, he said, he reported his concerns to a State Attorney's Office investigator and later to prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda.
Ie, before contacting the defense through a lawyer, he talked to the prosecutor in charge of the case as well as an investigator with oversight of the attorney's office. Maybe he should have discussed the matter with the attorney general directly after these first two attempts, but his disclosure seems a little more reasonable knowing that he seemed to make an early effort at following the "chain of command."
As a side note, this article was fairly confusing for me. I had to read key passages several times and I'm still uncertain of the basic sequence of events. Many useful hn comments on this post seem to be just clarifying what the article should have reported in plain language. Ugh.
So if I read that correctly, the same image file was available to both the defense and the prosecution.
When Kruidbos' discovery process found information that the defense hadn't found, he was concerned that he should turn it over to them.
Then he sought out a lawyer to parlay with the lawyers involved in the case, avoiding his office's chain of command.
Well, I think we'd need a lawyer to say what should have happened here-- Does anyone know whether the state is responsible for turning over everything they pull out of an image? Or is it enough to provide the image to the defense?
I watched the entire testimony on YouTube and from what I can tell, it boils down to this:
- both sides had an extremely hard to parse, near unintelligible raw source file (data dump from the phone)
- the prosecutor's office had purchased a software package that could turn this raw source file into a much more easily readable report
- the prosecutor's office didn't think that the defense would pay the several thousands of dollars for the same software, in order to generate the same report
- the prosecutor's office provided only the raw source file and declined to provide any of the auto-generated reports which were meant to extract data from, organize and allow for easier analysis of that source file
- the IT guy knew this and was afraid that in the future, someone could claim he acted in negligence
- unbeknownst to the IT guy, the defense had indeed purchased other 3rd party software and successfully analyzed the entire source file
- the prosecutor hinted that the IT guy's testimony is him getting even for being the (unconfirmed) target of a leak investigation earlier in 2012
So does the prosecutor need to turn over the software-generated report to the defense? Or only the raw source files which powered the software? That's the question and I am unqualified to answer. But if it's the former and not the latter then the prosecutor messed up and was caught red handed.
IANAL but it seems to me the interests of justice would require informing both the prosecution and defense attorneys if a state agency finds evidence of any sort that would be relevant to a given case.
Jumping the chain of command is never a good idea. At least send your boss an email (and BCC your gmail) to prove that you tried to go through official channels.
I don't think this is quite correct. The article says "The defense did receive the source file from the cellphone and used its own experts to extract data."
So it is very possible, even likely that the defense obtained the same data themselves.
[+] [-] s_q_b|12 years ago|reply
In layman's terms, a prosecutor has a duty to turn over all evidence of innocence to the defense, and failing to do so is a violation of the law and ethical rules.
I should note this includes expert reports, especially when the underlying evidence is of the "data dump" variety.
Unfortunately, it is extremely common for prosecutors to try to skirt this rule. Much like police protect one another, employees of some district attorneys are expected to cover these violations as an almost routine matter.
As prosecutors enjoy almost absolute judicial immunity, the regulations in the Rules of Professional Conduct are all that provide for sanctions in case of a violation. This measure has proved rather toothless as many state ethics boards, often composed of former prosecutors, are reluctant to issue sanctions.
Even in the most egregious violation of the Brady rule that I have seen, which occurred during the Duke lacrosse team case when ex-DA Nifong hid an exculpatory DNA report, the state ethics bar did not issue sanctions for that violation.
Credentials: I am not a lawyer, but I have worked as a paralegal for several years and captained a mock trial team for both high school and college. I have written documents that have been submitted in the courts after approval by attorneys, some specifically on this point.
[+] [-] malandrew|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downandout|12 years ago|reply
Prosecutors do serve a purpose in society. A small percentage of the people they incarcerate are actually dangerous and need to be restrained. However, the kinds of people that are attracted to spending their lives destroying the lives of other humans tend to be vindictive monsters and generally awful people, not unlike the worst of those they prosecute. I hope he sues for wrongful termination and is successful.
[+] [-] lawnchair_larry|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnordfnordfnord|12 years ago|reply
I doubt that. Most public records laws I have ever seen explicitly state that if you are a State employee and you have documents which you know to be germane to an ongoing criminal investigation that they must not be destroyed, and that knowingly destroying documents in such a case is an offense.
[+] [-] tantalor|12 years ago|reply
The relevant paragraph is,
Peek's letter contends that on May 24, Kruidbos wiped clean the information on a computer assigned to him, thereby violating public records law.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|12 years ago|reply
I can't even think what this may have to do with racism other than you trying to play race card at a completely inappropriate occasion or just using "racist" as a general swear word.
[+] [-] brk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tantalor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenyoda|12 years ago|reply
I find it disturbing that government employees in Florida can approve raising their own pensions.
[+] [-] Zikes|12 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6029823
[+] [-] hristov|12 years ago|reply
Regarding the data, it is possible that the prosecutor decided the data is not relevant for the case and that there is no need to embarrass the victim who cannot defend himself.
There is no dispute that the victim was not armed at the time of the attack. Having died as the result of the attack he did not really have an opportunity to hide his gun afterwards. It being established that he was unarmed at the time of the attack, his relationship with guns before the attack is not really relevant. The fact that he had a picture of a gun on his cell is really irrelevant.
[+] [-] s_q_b|12 years ago|reply
That's a dangerous justification.
First, the prosecutor is not the arbiter of relevance. The evidence should be turned over, and then the judge can make a determination as to its relevance. Allowing prosecutors to decide the relevance of evidence in their care would open the door to myriad abuses.
For example, in a DNA case, what would stop a prosecutor from saying a third or fourth sample found that matched other individuals wasn't "relevant" to the case?
Second, the notion that the "victim... cannot defend himself" is not only factually incorrect but immaterial. The deceased, who has not yet been proven to be a victim of anything, has the power of the state, armed with billions of dollars, a prison system, and a small army of investigators to defend him. The defendant has only his counsel and his wits.
More importantly, damage to that person's reputation is not relevant to the prosecution of another individual. Our justice system is supposed to place a premium on the rights of the defendant, since the harm of incarcerating an innocent person is considered so grave. If the deceased's memory is tarnished by messages regarding previous violent actions, or purchases of deadly weapons, that is a price that must be borne to ensure the accused's right to a fair trial.
Finally, the bar to relevance is extremely low. The rules of evidence state that relevant evidence it is any item which makes a fact in dispute more or less likely to be true. Note that it does not set any minimum bar on how much the evidence would influence the case, only that it affect an issue in dispute, even in the most minute fashion.
In this case, it is the defense's contention that the deceased acted violently and in fact provoked the confrontation, and that the accused acted only in self defense. It is also their contention that the deceased reached for a firearm.
It is certainly relevant that the deceased's conversion indicate that he had knowledge of firearms, that he purchased deadly weapons in the past, and that had an admitted history of violence.
[+] [-] malandrew|12 years ago|reply
This is the same reason the NSA is not able to hide behind the state secrets clause for programs that are already public.
I hope this guys wins a lot of money in a wrongful termination suit. I would hope that this also results in the termination of the person abusing their position to terminate this guy.
People should absolutely never be punished when they are aiding justice, after all that is the responsibility of the prosecutor. A prosecutor should only be seeking a conviction for people they have every reason to believe is actually guilty. Padding your prosecutorial résumé by getting a win at the cost of justice should be a career ending move for a prosecutor. It's no different than a doctor breaking the hippocratic oath.
[+] [-] bmistree|12 years ago|reply
> Concerned that attorneys did not have all the information they needed to prepare the case, he said, he reported his concerns to a State Attorney's Office investigator and later to prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda.
Ie, before contacting the defense through a lawyer, he talked to the prosecutor in charge of the case as well as an investigator with oversight of the attorney's office. Maybe he should have discussed the matter with the attorney general directly after these first two attempts, but his disclosure seems a little more reasonable knowing that he seemed to make an early effort at following the "chain of command."
As a side note, this article was fairly confusing for me. I had to read key passages several times and I'm still uncertain of the basic sequence of events. Many useful hn comments on this post seem to be just clarifying what the article should have reported in plain language. Ugh.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/13/justice/zimmerman-it-firing/in...
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|12 years ago|reply
When Kruidbos' discovery process found information that the defense hadn't found, he was concerned that he should turn it over to them.
Then he sought out a lawyer to parlay with the lawyers involved in the case, avoiding his office's chain of command.
Well, I think we'd need a lawyer to say what should have happened here-- Does anyone know whether the state is responsible for turning over everything they pull out of an image? Or is it enough to provide the image to the defense?
[+] [-] nugget|12 years ago|reply
- both sides had an extremely hard to parse, near unintelligible raw source file (data dump from the phone)
- the prosecutor's office had purchased a software package that could turn this raw source file into a much more easily readable report
- the prosecutor's office didn't think that the defense would pay the several thousands of dollars for the same software, in order to generate the same report
- the prosecutor's office provided only the raw source file and declined to provide any of the auto-generated reports which were meant to extract data from, organize and allow for easier analysis of that source file
- the IT guy knew this and was afraid that in the future, someone could claim he acted in negligence
- unbeknownst to the IT guy, the defense had indeed purchased other 3rd party software and successfully analyzed the entire source file
- the prosecutor hinted that the IT guy's testimony is him getting even for being the (unconfirmed) target of a leak investigation earlier in 2012
So does the prosecutor need to turn over the software-generated report to the defense? Or only the raw source files which powered the software? That's the question and I am unqualified to answer. But if it's the former and not the latter then the prosecutor messed up and was caught red handed.
[+] [-] mpyne|12 years ago|reply
Jumping the chain of command is never a good idea. At least send your boss an email (and BCC your gmail) to prove that you tried to go through official channels.
[+] [-] ericcumbee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hristov|12 years ago|reply
So it is very possible, even likely that the defense obtained the same data themselves.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]