Overview
The Due Process Protections Act amended the federal rules of criminal procedure to require district courts to issue, at the outset of every criminal case, an order confirming the prosecutor's disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland, and the consequences for violating the order. A critical role for defense counsel at the outset of a criminal case will now be to shape the terms of this mandatory Brady order. Key open issues that should be the subject of defense counsel advocacy as courts begin to implement this important new law include: what information must be disclosed, when it must be disclosed, the scope of the prosecution team that is bound to make disclosure, and how compliance or noncompliance will be determined and sanctioned. This article gives a roadmap for defense counsel to obtain a broad and meaningful Brady order on each of these issues.
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