Does prosecution's failure to disclose evidence of another suspect demand reversal? SCOTUS to decide
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether prosecutors’ failure to disclose evidence, including information another possible suspect, requires vacating the convictions of a group of men convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a woman in 1984.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted review on Wednesday in two cases stemming from the murder of Catherine Fuller in Washington, D.C., report the New York Times, the Washington Post and SCOTUSblog.
Seven men are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review their convictions in the case under the due process principles for disclosure of exculpatory evidence established in the 1963 case Brady v. Maryland. Six of the men remain in prison, while a seventh has been paroled. An eighth died in prison.
Part of the undisclosed evidence concerned another possible suspect, who was arrested after the murder in the robberies and assaults of two other women in the neighborhood. He was later convicted. In 1992, the same man was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a woman in the same area where Fuller was killed.
The appeal by six of the men had asked the Supreme Court to decide whether courts can consider information that arises after the trial when evaluating the significance of the undisclosed evidence, according to the SCOTUSblog story. But the Supreme Court said it would only decide whether the men’s convictions must be set aside for Brady violations.
The cases are Turner v. United States and Overton v. United States. The SCOTUSblog case pages are here and here.
