Brady vs Maryland

Definition of Prosecutorial Misconduct

The act of breaking the law, court rules, or code of ethics of law practice, while working as a prosecuting attorney.

The prosecution team, Alana Mccrary and Anthony Poignant visited Dime two days after Charles left and made a secret deal with him.

If he testified against Marcus and exposed his criminal activity while he was in prison, they would have Dime's life sentence overthrown and he'd serve eight more years and be released when he was fifty three years old.

Alana and Anthony would ascertain a wide variety of illegal and unethical acts in the name of getting Marcus Johnson convicted.

Prosecutorial misconduct. This was Alana's first major criminal trial and she'd sell her ass on the auction block if it gets her a win. Such as witness tampering. Dime was the prime candidate.

Dime signed his name on the dotted line...

Brady vs. Maryland...

In this case, the state of Maryland had convicted John Leo Brady and his friend, Donald Boblit, of a murder that took place during a robbery. Brady had admitted that he was involved with the murder, but he claimed that Boblit was the one responsible for actually doing the killing.

The prosecution withheld evidence in the form of a written statement that was supplied by Boblit in which he confessed to Brady's exact claim. Brady, however, did not become aware of this fact until after he was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. Boblit received the same conviction and sentence for his part in the crime. In Maryland, the only two sentences for this crime were life in prison or the death penalty.

Brady appealed his conviction, requesting a new trial, which was dismissed by the trial court but granted by the Maryland Court of Appeals. The Court held that the prosecution's suppression of evidence robbed Brady of his right to due process.

The Court affirmed Brady's conviction and his guilt, yet permitted a retrial for the sole purpose of revising his punishment.

Brady appealed again on the grounds that he was being denied a federal right in the Court of Appeals restricting a new trial to the reconsideration of his punishment, and not to reconsider his conviction as a whole.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari, agreeing to consider the issue of whether Brady's federal rights had been violated when the re-trial was restricted to the matter of punishment.

The Supreme Court's decision in this case became one of the most important decisions in the history of criminal justice.

The Court held that withholding exculpatory evidence violates a defendant's due process, "where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment."

The Court found that under Maryland state law, the withheld confession could not have proven Brady's innocence, but that it was crucial in determining how severely he was to be punished.

Therefore, it was proper for the remand back to the lower court for the purposes of reconfiguring Brady's punishment.

This case inspired the term "Brady disclosure," which refers to the requirement that the prosecution disclose any exculpatory evidence they may find to the defense.

"Brady evidence" includes such exculpatory evidence as witness statements or physical evidence that disproves the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses.

It is also evidence that permits the defense to disprove the credibility of a witness for the prosecution.

There are also "Brady cops," which is a term that refers to police officers who have been confirmed as being actively dishonest while in their official capacity.

Alana McCrary was about to knowingly and willingly recreate this case in a major way that would cost Marcus his life...

They would paint the entire criminal justice system in a bad light...

Abusing their prosecutorial discretion.

Prosecutors were not allowed to discriminate when picking a jury, but Alana and Anthony did just that. They were expertly cunning. Even Judge Harper Hills hadn't realized they were excluding potential jurors based on their ethnicity, religion and personal views without making it obvious...

Alana, a privileged black woman with a white father, passed as a Caucasian racist whom had denounced her negro heritage at the age of fifteen after her then blue black boyfriend took her virginity and spread it all over high school.

She not only, knowingly, violated Marcus's constitutional rights, but the prosecuting team pissed on the constitutional rights of the potential jurors they dismissed...

When it was all said and done, eleven jurors were white.

The twelfth juror was a black Republican college student...

He would not be empathetic or sympathetic to Marcus Johnson because he was black. They were hopeful that all of the cherry picked jurors wouldn't compromise the case.

Guaranteed win, Alana thought. She even paid each juror five thousand dollars in secrecy and required that they signed waivers and nondisclosure agreements...