BRADY   FILES

The BRADY RULE come from a case Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 decided by the United States Supreme Court  in 1963.  The Court ruled “The government’s withholding of evidence that is material to the determination of either guilt or punishment of a criminal defendant violates the defendant’s constitutional right to due process.”

The Brady Rule also known as Brady requires prosecutors to not hide information that would prove a defendant is innocent.  Prosecutors in the USA find it bothersome to obey the Brady and violate it because it’s easier to win by hiding truth than telling truth.

Bronston v. United States
(409 U.S. 352, 1973)
Samuel Broston covicted of perjury for telling the truth.  Supreme Court established that a person cannot be convicted of perjury for telling truth.  Prosecution did not like losing a case because of truth so prosecutor convicted Bronston of perjury for telling truth.

Fifty years ago in Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the constitutional importance of providing a person accused of a crime with any and all favorable information that might affect the case. This decision established certain constitutional obligations for prosecutors during the pretrial information-sharing process known as “discovery.” Unlike discovery in civil cases, where the rules require that all parties get equal access to the same information, criminal discovery all too often is guided by prosecutors’ exceedingly narrow reading of the requirement established in Brady that the government disclose all favorable information to the defense. The failure to satisfy Brady obligations presents an obvious risk of conviction of the innocent and puts a significant financial burden on the accused. Yet such failures are commonplace. These are the stories of real people whose lives were dramatically harmed by the government’s failure to comply with the constitutional demands of Brady.

United States v. Stevens
After 40 years in the U.S. Senate, a jury found Ted Steven guilty of a felony for failing to disclose gifts he received. Eight days later, he narrowly lost re-election. The next year, the verdict was set aside because the prosecution had failed to turn over evidence to the defense.  The prosecution was not sent to prison for violating Steven’s rights and violating Brady.

Michael W. Morton
On August 13, 1986, Michael Morton’s life took a tragic turn.2 Not only did Morton lose his wife in a horrific act of violence, but that day was the first in a deeply disturbing chain of events that ripped his family apart and, ultimately, culminated with Morton spending 25 years of his life behind bars for a crime he did not commit — the murder of his wife Christine Morton. Although it was DNA evidence confirming Morton’s innocence that resulted in his official exoneration in December 2011, the post conviction DNA litigation unveiled information even more disturbing than the conviction of an innocent man. Prosecutors obtained the conviction by repeatedly abandoning their constitutional obligations under Brady.  The prosecutor should have been sent to prison for three times what Morton got but got to go free.

Michael Zomber
An antique firearms dealer, Michael Zomber,5 lost two years of his life in prison and over five years fighting for his innocence after prosecutors withheld letters contradicting the testimony of the government’s key witness in violation of Zomber’s constitutional rights. In 2003, Zomber was charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud based on three letters he wrote to induce another collector of antique firearms to purchase some antique firearms at allegedly inflated prices. The collector was the government’s primary witness and Zomber’s conviction rested almost entirely on the collector’s testimony on the value of the guns. It was only after the trial concluded, however, that letters written by the collector, contradicting his testimony about the value of the guns, came to light. The prosecutors had this evidence in their possession before the trial, but they never disclosed it to the defense.  The prosecutors were not prosecuted for violating Brady.

In overturning Zomber’s conviction and ordering a new trial, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals explained that “it [is] no stretch to believe that a cross-examination of [the collector] with the benefit of [the withheld] letters may have seeded reasonable doubt in the minds of one or more jurors. …” After serving more than half of his original sentence and paying more than $1 million in legal fees, Zomber regained his freedom when the government dismissed the charges against him in exchange for his agreement not to seek sanctions against the government for their flagrant violation of his constitutional rights.

Lindsey Manufacturing
Companies facing criminal charges rarely go to trial, but Lindsey Manufacturing President and CEO Keith Lindsey and Vice President and CFO Steve K. Lee took the trial risk and mounted an aggressive defense,6 on behalf of themselves and their company, that lifted the veil on numerous violations of their constitutional rights. The Lindsey defendants were charged and ultimately convicted of multiple violations of the foreign bribery statute (FCPA). In a lengthy post-trial order, however, U.S. District Judge Howard Matz described this case as an “unusual and extreme picture of a prosecution gone awry.” The judge threw out all the convictions and banned the government from retrying the case. Occurring over a three-year period, the misconduct included the intentional withholding of several grand jury transcripts evidencing the serious flaws in the investigation and substantially undercutting the government’s case. Judge Matz characterized these transcripts as the “most complete and compelling evidence that the government investigation had been tainted” and explained that without the transcripts the defense was severely hamstringed. Despite all this, the Lindsey defendants were able to fight for their innocence and protect their rights. But the successful defense of these individuals and their company came at great cost.

Antonio Lyons
Prior to being put on trial in 2001 for crimes including cocaine trafficking, Antonio Lyons was a respected Florida businessman. A jury convicted him and he spent three years in jail. By reading the facts as laid out in a 2010 opinion by U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, one could conclude that Lyons was a model citizen.

A college graduate who had never been in trouble with the law, Lyons owned a clothing store and a nightclub. He was viewed in the community as a leader and a role model, especially for his work with programs for low-income children.  At trial, prosecutors did not tell the defense about the evidence that could have discredited the 20 prison inmates who testified against Lyons. The government promised some witnesses an early release if they implicated Lyons. One witness told the FBI that he had been buying five kilograms of cocaine face-to-face from Lyons every two weeks for three years. This witness, however, had difficulty identifying Lyons in a photo lineup. The defense asked for reports, notes, and taped conversations involving this witness, but the government told the court that the documents were not in its possession and that the taped conversations had been destroyed. The government’s statements were false, and the material requested by the defense did include Brady material.

Six years after his release, as part of proceedings brought by Lyons seeking damages for the government’s wrongful conduct, Judge Presnell granted Lyons’ motion for a certificate of actual innocence.

William Dollar – May 1997
Prosecutors charged licensed firearms dealers William and Corinne Jean Dollar with unlawfully facilitating “straw man” purchases of guns, i.e., lawful sales made with knowledge that the guns would be unlawfully resold to individuals who could not legally purchase them.  One year later, shortly before trial and after repeated requests by the defense for disclosure, the defense was inundated with several documents that the prosecutors should have provided months earlier. Concluding the government “had failed to timely produce Brady materials,” the court continued the trial for another four months and yet, after the lengthy continuance and a full trial, the prosecutors still had not turned over everything. For example, the government put two of its key witnesses on the stand without ever providing to the defense statements by these witnesses that contradicted their testimony and information about the plea deal made with one of the witnesses.

In another instance, the prosecutors only produced the written statements of a witness the evening before he took the stand, forcing the defense to scramble as it sifted through the evidence.

The first time it came to light that the prosecutors failed to disclose evidence favorable to the defense, the trial court postponed the trial. However, when it was discovered after the trial that prosecutors still had not fully complied with their constitutional disclosure obligations, the court dismissed all the charges and prohibited the government from trying the Dollar siblings anew. When U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon dismissed all the charges and refused to give the government another chance, he wrote: “From the outset of this case, defense counsel have been unrelenting in their effort to obtain” evidence from the government potentially helpful to the defense, and the government’s “general response has been to disclose as little as possible, and as late as possible.”

With the prosecutors trampling on their constitutional rights at every turn, it took the Dollar siblings nearly two years of fighting for their innocence before they were ultimately exonerated.

Dr. Ali Shaygan
Dr. Ali Shaygan has been fighting to restore his professional reputation and to receive compensation for the damage the government inflicted upon him through a series of constitutional violations in its unsuccessful attempt to prosecute him for unlawfully dispensing prescriptions.

Dr. Shaygan came under investigation in 2007, was indicted on 141 counts in 2008, and his entire defense team was inappropriately investigated prior to trial. The jury ultimately acquitted the doctor on all counts, but not before, at the government’s request, two informants secretly recorded conversations with the defense team and shared the recordings with the government. Although these two informants later testified against Dr. Shaygan, the prosecutors withheld all information, notes, and an informant agreement related to these recordings. The recordings only came to light because one informant accidentally mentioned them while testifying.

U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold described the events surrounding Dr. Shaygan’s prosecution as “profoundly disturbing” and, in a sharply worded order imposing sanctions on the government, chastised the prosecutors for “knowingly and willfully disobeying” court orders, failing to comply with their discovery obligations, and engaging in “unethical behavior not befitting the role of a prosecutor.” The government successfully appealed that order, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review, leaving Dr. Shaygan unable to be made whole by the justice system despite proving his innocence at trial.

Judges let prosecutors violate laws without punishment.

Do you agree prosecutors should get 37 years in prison for violating Brady?

The Department of Justice claims  the following “The mission of the Department of Justice is to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”  The Department of Justice violates the law on a regular basis.  Prosecutors violate Brady  to win cases and don’t get prosecuted for violating Brady.

New Mexico v Alec Baldwin
In the criminal case against Alec Baldwin for the fatal 2021 Rust movie shooting a New Mexico judge permanently dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charges in July 2024 after finding prosecutors withheld crucial evidence from the defense.  The prosecutors were not sent to prison for violating the rights of Baldwin.  The prosecutors violated Brady because they knew they would not get in trouble.

Judges allow prosecutors to violate Brady.