Brady Evidence is one of the most important tools at your disposal of proving yourself innocent (or getting a reduced sentence) after you’ve already been sent to prison.
Introduction to Brady Material
Brady Material is material (or evidence) that is favorable to the defense (your loved one) in some way. In other words, it’s exculpatory, which is evidence tending to show you or your loved one was not guilty or at least evidence that would mitigate the punishment for the crime.
You may be wondering why this evidence is referred to as “Brady Evidence“.
It’s called this because there’s a Brady vs. Maryland case that sent the fact out that there is a constitutional obligation for the state or the government to turn over favorable material to you without request, and it goes not just to the prosecutor but also to the police and any of the state agents acting in your case.
Because of this, if someone found an inconsistent statement, gathered a piece of evidence, or knew some fact which they did not disclose to you which would have been exculpatory or mitigating to your case, then you could be entitled to relief because of that failure to disclose the evidence.
Discovering the Evidence
How do you discover this evidence?
Well, here at our office, our post conviction defense attorneys and staff do it through public information requests, freedom of information requests (FOI).
We obtain the files from the District Attorney’s office and the defense attorney’s file.
Then we do a comparison between the two after the fact to see what there is in the state’s file that we don’t see in the defense file because sometimes things are withheld.
We also go to the state agencies that would’ve been involved whether it is:
- The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
- The county Sheriff’s office where the crime occured,
- Police departments,
- CPS (Texas Child Protective Services)
- Whoever it may have been that was involved in the case.
We try to elicit that material that may have been gathered by the police that wasn’t forwarded on to the District Attorney’s office because if you can find evidence in the police files that weren’t in the District Attorney’s files, they still were obligated to produce that to you and that could be an avenue for release.
To review, the way to go about this properly is to:
- Get the defense file,
- Get the state file,
- Compare the two,
- Get the police and/or sheriff’s office file, look at that,
- And then see what differences you see between the evidence you’ve gotten your hands on.
It is also useful to go back and talk to all of the people involved again. (Prosecutor, defense attorney, detectives, victims, and witnesses)
Yes, you need to get ahold of all of the witnesses involved in the case and the all of the potential victims in the case.
You can see what other statements they may have made because it’s those inconsistent statements and other interviews that may have been previously undisclosed and therefore may be a good source of Brady Material for you in your case.
About The Attorney
Jacob Blizzard is board certified in both criminal law and criminal appellate law.
He regularly practices in the areas of state and federal criminal defense, criminal appeals, post conviction writs of habeas corpus.
In Texas, there are more than 100,000 attorneys licensed to practice, but only 7,450 are board certified.
In the entire State of Texas, as of the 2019 certification year, there were only 87 attorneys board certified in both criminal law and criminal appellate law, making Mr. Blizzard one of 0.087% of attorneys in Texas to hold both of those certifications.
