The United States Supreme Court decided a new Brady case today, Wetzel v. Lambert, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), which might be relevant to innocence lawyers litigating the failure of the state to disclose impeachment material. In Lambert, SCOTUS overturned the 3rd Circuit’s grant of habeas and held that the state courts’ factual determination regarding materiality of the undisclosed materials was not unreasonable. I believe the case is easily distinguishable from most cases that innocence lawyers might be litigating, however, because the Brady material was fairly weak and the witness it related to had been substantially impeached already at trial (thus additional impeachment material was merely cumulative). Opinion here.
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Mark Godsey
Daniel P. & Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project
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Contributing Editors
Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director, California Innocence ProjectOrder his book Wrongful Convictions Cases & Materials 2d ed. here
Cheah Wui Ling
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
Daniel Ehighalua
Nigerian Barrister
Jessica S. Henry
Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Montclair University
Carey D. Hoffman
Director of Digital Communications, Ohio Innocence Project@OIPCommunicati1
Shiyuan Huang
Associate Professor, Shandong University Law School; Visiting Scholar, University of Cincinnati College of Law
C Ronald Huff
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology, University of California-Irvine
Phil Locke
Science and Technology Advisor, Ohio Innocence Project and Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic
Dr. Carole McCartney
Reader in Law, Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria University
Nancy Petro
Author and Advocate Order her book False Justice here
Kana Sasakura
Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University Innocence Project Japan
Dr. Robert Schehr
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence Project
Ulf Stridbeck
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Martin Yant
Author and Private Investigator Order his book Presumed Guilty here-
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