Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director,
California Innocence ProjectOrder his book
Wrongful Convictions Cases & Materials 2d ed. here
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
Daniel Ehighalua
Nigerian Barrister
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
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
Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University Innocence Project Japan
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence Project
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Author and Private Investigator
Order his book
Presumed Guilty here
Wrongful Convictions Blog 
The Terrible Old Rule that Undermines Conviction Accuracy
Samuel Gross has provided an insightful commentary in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 22 vote (6 to 2) in Turner vs. United States, that affirmed the murder convictions of seven men and reaffirmed “a terrible old rule that has done great harm to the accuracy of criminal trials…”
A professor of law at the University of Michigan and founder and Senior Editor of The National Registry of Exonerations, Gross notes that in half of more than 800 exonerations since 1989 in which people had been wrongly convicted of murder, the prosecution had concealed exculpatory evidence at trial.
Students of the law and of wrongful convictions recognize these instances as Brady violations. In 1964, in Brady v. Maryland, the high court ruled that the government is obligated to disclose evidence that is favorable to the defense if it is “material” to the case. “Materiality” was later further defined as having a “reasonable probability” that the outcome of the trial would have been more favorable to the defendant if the evidence had been disclosed.
But can this rule be accurately applied? Is there a better way that could cure this nation’s “epidemic” of Brady violations? Gross answers both questions in his commentary, “How Concealing Key Evidence Convicts the Innocent.”
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Posted in Editorials/Opinion, Reforming/Improving the system, wrongful conviction
Tagged Brady Violation, Commentary, materiality, opinion, supreme court