Legal Commentary

Stevens Prosecutors Hide Witness' Change of Story (and Witness)

By TChris

Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens would be an entertaining caricature if he were not actually a senator. His trial is suddenly beset with unexpected drama. What did you expect?

Prosecution witness Rocky Williams, "a construction foreman who was involved in renovations on Stevens’s home," contacted defense lawyers over the weekend and gave them critical evidence that the prosecution had not revealed.

Defense lawyers said Williams told them he spent much less time working on Stevens’s home than Veco’s accounting records indicate. That evidence, they said, “gravely undercuts” the government’s argument that Veco spent $188,000 of its own money on Stevens’s house.

[more...]

Stevens now has a legitimate opportunity to complain that the government violated its discovery obligations. That argument is strengthened by the government's apparent decision to hide the witness.

Williams had been in Washington, D.C., preparing to testify, but prosecutors sent him to back to Alaska last Thursday, saying they no longer needed his testimony. Prosecutors didn’t alert the defense or Judge Sullivan that Williams was leaving town. Judge Sullivan said he was “flabbergasted” by the government’s actions.

The prosecution's response:

“We believed we disclosed exactly what we needed to,” [prosecutor Nicholas] Marsh said.

If Williams told prosecutors a story during trial preparation that significantly varied from a previous version of that story, the defense had a right to know about it. The circumstances suggest that prosecutors instead canceled Williams' subpoena and promptly shipped him to a different state.

Impact on the trial: so far, none.

In light of the developments, Stevens’s lawyers have asked Judge Sullivan to declare a mistrial or dismiss all charges. Judge Sullivan said he was “not inclined at this point” to take either action, but he indicated that he will recall witnesses who already testified and let Stevens’s lawyers question them again.

The prosecutors just gave Stevens a nice appellate issue. Why couldn't they just play by the rules?

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).