Talk:Giglio v. United States

This article was nominated for deletion on 21 December 2010 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Reconciling when DiPaola/Golden conflict was discovered

As I wrote this, I was conscious of an apparent contradiction in this article, in the following two sentences:

While his appeal was pending, his counsel discovered evidence of the government's discussions with Taliento. (suggesting that DiPaola's conversation with Taliento was not known until the appellate phase, after the trial was over); and
The trial court did not attempt to reconcile the apparent conflict between DiPaola and Golden. (suggesting that DiPaola's conversation with Taliento known at the time of the trial).

I cannot reconcile these, but they come from the Supreme Court opinion:

While appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals, defense counsel discovered new evidence indicating that the Government had failed to disclose an alleged promise made to its key witness that he would not be prosecuted if he testified for the Government. Giglio at 150-151.
The District Court did not undertake to resolve the apparent conflict between the two Assistant United States Attorneys, DiPaola and Golden, but proceeded on the theory that, even if a promise had been made by DiPaola, it was not authorized, and its disclosure to the jury would not have affected its verdict. Giglio at 153.

Ideas? TJRC (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article misses the mark on the legal significance of Giglio

The article dances around, but does not outright state, why Giglio is legally significant and distinct from Brady v. Maryland

The significance of Giglio is that the prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence held by the government even if the prosecutor does not personally know about the evidence.

In other words, the prosecutor has an affirmative duty to get the evidence from police or other agents of the government, and turn it over to the defendant. It is no excuse for the prosecutor to later say "I didn't even know this evidence existed" when the evidence was in the hands of police the whole time. Hence, the defendant's rights are violated irrespective of the "good faith or bad faith" of the prosecutor.

I think the article gets close to saying this, but given Wikipedia is written for non-lawyers and lawyers alike, I think it could be a little clearer/in plain English why this case is different than Brady.

Sources: https://www.actl.com/docs/default-source/default-document-library/position-statements-and-white-papers/brady-giglio-guide-for-prosecutors.pdf?sfvrsn=c1df747_4 (see page 6)

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/sites/ilr.law.uiowa.edu/files/2024-07/ILR-109-McCort.pdf (see page 3)

See also Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972) QUOTE: "In the circumstances shown by this record, neither DiPaola's authority nor his failure to inform his superiors or his associates is controlling. Moreover, whether the nondisclosure was a result of negligence or design, it is the responsibility of the prosecutor. The prosecutor's office is an entity and as such it is the spokesman for the Government. A promise made by one attorney must be attributed, for these purposes, to the Government. See Restatement (Second) of Agency § 272. See also American Bar Association, Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Discovery and Procedure Before Trial § 2.1(d). To the extent this places a burden on the large prosecution offices, procedures and regulations can be established to carry that burden and to insure communication of all relevant information on each case to every lawyer who deals with it." 2601:188:C800:3640:A526:E0BA:D73:1FFD (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]