The American Bar Association just released an important new opinion regarding the prosecutorial ethical duty to disclose evidence and information favorable to the defense. The rule itself requires prosecutors to “make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense.” The opinion interprets this ethical mandate very broadly: it is more demanding than constitutional Brady disclosure requirements; it covers all information favorable to the defense, not just evidence; it is up to the defense, not the prosecution, to evaluate the utility of the information; the government must disclose information as soon as is reasonably practical, and the defendant cannot waive these rights or absolve the prosecutor of her disclosure duties. Here are a few key excerpts:
Rule 3.8(d) is more demanding than the constitutional case law in that it requires the disclosure of evidence or information favorable to the defense without regard to the anticipated impact of the evidence or information on a trial’s outcome. . . .The rule requires prosecutors to disclose favorable evidence so that the defense can decide on its utility.
The ethical duty of disclosure is not limited to admissible ‘evidence’ . . .; it also requires disclosure of favorable ‘information’. Though possibly inadmissible itself, favorable information may lead a defendant’s lawyer to admissible testimony or other evidence or assist him [sic] in other ways, such as in plea negotiations.
For the disclosure of information to be timely, it must be made early enough that the information can be used effectively. . . . Once known to the prosecutor, [evidence and information] must be disclosed under Rule 3.8(d) as soon as reasonably practical. . . Among the most significant purposes for which disclosure must be made under Rule 3.8(d) is to enable defense counsel to advise the defendant regarding whether to plead guilty.
Where early disclosure, or disclosure of too much information, may undermine an ongoing investigation or jeopardize a witness, as may be the case when an informant’s identity would be revealed, the prosecutor may seek a protective order.
This is an extremely important opinion for informant law and practice, for several reasons…(more after the break)
First is that a great deal of snitch litigation involves so-called Brady or Giglio claims (see this
Another interesting feature of the opinion is that prosecutorial supervisors must “establish procedures to ensure that the prosecutor responsible for making disclosure obtains evidence and information that must be disclosed.” This includes keeping track of information in one case that might need to be disclosed by a different prosecutor in another case. In other words, prosecutor offices must have data collection and dissemination mechanisms by which their employees can comply with their ethical obligations. This position contrasts with the recent Supreme Court decision in Van de Kamp v. Goldstein this year, in which the Court held that prosecutorial supervisors could not be sued for failing to create data collection systems to provide informant-related impeachment material to defendants. While under Van de Kamp a chief prosecutor cannot be sued for the office’s lack of disclosure procedures, under the ABA opinion she could be disciplined.
In effect, the ABA has decided that the Supreme Court’s decisions on prosecutorial disclosure are too weak, ethically speaking, and that prosecutors and their supervisors have far stronger professional obligations to disclose information to defendants, including information about government informants.
Ethical obligations are a crucial feature of the legal profession–attorneys can be disciplined, fired, or disbarred if they violate the ethical rules of their jurisdiction. Disclosure obligations are likewise central to prosecutorial integrity. Attorney General Eric Holder recently threw out the corruption case against Alaska Senator Ted Stevens because Holder concluded that DOJ lawyers violated their obligation to disclose information to the defense. NPR story here. Insofar as states and prosecutors take this new ABA directive seriously, it could be a powerful engine for increased disclosure and transparency.
On a more technical note (non-lawyers may want to tune out here), the opinion does not explicitly address a constitutional issue raised by the Supreme Court in Ruiz. The Ruiz Court distinguished between exculpatory Brady material–material that directly pertains to the defendant’s guilt or innocence–and exculpatory Giglio impeachment material–material suggesting that the state’s witness is lying. Classic Giglio includes information about informant rewards, the informant’s criminal record, prior history of cooperation or falsehoods, or anything that would impeach the informant’s credibility. The Ruiz Court held that although Giglio material is a form of Brady material, the government can withhold that information from defendants prior to the entry of a plea, although not prior to trial. The ABA opinion makes clear, however, that prosecutors cannot wait for trial, but have to disclose information early enough so that defendants can use it meaningfully during plea negotiations.
The question is therefore whether Rule 3.8(d) applies to Giglio impeachment material in the same way that it applies to information that “tends to negate the guilt of the accused.” In my view, it does, although I recognize that the ABA opinion does not expressly say yes or no, nor does it distinguish between Brady and Giglio the way the Court did in Ruiz. The opinion does say, however, that a prosecutor’s ethical disclosure obligations are broader than her Brady disclosure obligations, which would suggest that the ABA did not think that the Ruiz distinction matters in the ethical context.
Perhaps more fundamentally, the opinion’s broad language seems consistent with requiring prosecutorial disclosure of Giglio impeachment. The opinion says that prosecutors must disclose any information favorable to the defense, even if it’s not material to the outcome, and that the defense gets to decide on its utility, particularly in figuring out whether to go to trial, plead guilty, or investigate other evidence. These are precisely the sort of decisions that are made based on impeachment material. The ABA even contemplates the situation where the government wants to withhold the identity of an informant: the opinion says that the government can seek a protective order, not that the government can withhold the information. In sum, it would seem anomalous for the opinion to require such broad disclosure, but then permit a prosecutor to withhold the fact that her main witness is being compensated for his testimony and has lied in previous cases.