02 February 2004

"The lawyer for music legend Phil Spector has a mystery piece of evidence in the murder case but is refusing to turn it over, a prosecutor said Thursday."

Now that's interesting. I know, in Virginia at least, if my client hands me incriminating evidence I cannot keep it (generally interpreted as handing the knife back to client and telling him he's not paying me enough to go to jail myself). I suspect the same general rule would apply if my investigator found something and brought it to me (and shortly thereafter he would lose his job - he should have left it where it was and told me about it).

However, if the evidence is exculpatory I don't believe I have a duty to disclose. So the prosecutor's nightmare in a case like this is that I have a knife with the victim's blood and the butler's fingerprints or even worse a security tape of the butler doing the deed. If he cannot find this out before trial he is going to be in for an awful shock. Of course, it's almost impossible to defend yourself without revealing what the piece of evidence is, so prosecutors can bring motions like this in order to fish some.

Caveat: I do not know the law of evidence in California. For all I know it requires full disclosure of physical evidence by both parties.

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