Judge orders all federal prosecutors in Manhattan to read opinion on withholding evidence
Source: Politico
A federal judge has ordered all federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to read a ruling she issued Wednesday that blasts prosecutors for their handling of evidence in a criminal case involving alleged violations of sanctions against Iran.
U.S. District Court Judge Allison Nathan also said she was unsatisfied with the completeness of the government’s account of why prosecutors failed to turn over one key piece of evidence to the defense until the middle of trial, with one government attorney discussing with colleagues a plan to “ bury” the previously undisclosed letter among other documents being emailed to defense lawyers.
“No responsible Government lawyer should strategize how to ‘bury’ a document that was not, but should have been, previously disclosed to the defense. A responsible Government lawyer should—at a minimum—forthrightly and truthfully reveal late disclosures to the defense,” Nathan wrote, emphatically disagreeing with the conclusion from U.S. Attorney’s Office leaders that there was nothing to “condemn” in the prosecutors’ actions.
“This Court disagrees and hereby strongly condemns this conduct,” Nathan wrote in her 34-page opinion.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/sdny-prosecutors-iran-sanctions-violations-416338
= new reply since forum marked as read
... we ALL lose! We should hope the judge has the spanking arm to uphold this order.
