I was just made aware of this because I don't see it, so I apologize for the late reply. I do not understand some of your questions to be honest. You just recently posted to everyone that you are a lawyer (unverified) in another country
IN - Abby & Libby - The Delphi Murders - Richard Allen Arrested - #171 but you make many factual-type posts on US law that do not seem to square with this imo.
I've been pretty clear to tag everything as my opinion. But also we are talking legal analysis of an affidavit, so it is pretty clearly only our opinion. There is no fact here. We don't know how Judge Gull will rule. But I suspect the defence has not raised nearly enough to succeed.
If they are in possession of exculpatory information, they are required to disclose it. This includes information they are aware of
when they make an application for a search warrant. It is not "fun and games". It's the law. Many of these repeated posts have been made as a lawyer and
without a link to verify your claim that none of this is relevant if a discovery deadline hasn't passed. Imo this is simply not true, and there appears to be many trusting in those comments. Not wanting to compound the no link problem I pulled something up quick. While this is a Federal case, so is Franks, and so too is the U.S. Constitution (Federal law). But, regardless of this, this case is also an appeal from
Indiana (2018).
"Benner concedes for purposes of this appeal that he knowingly or recklessly made false statements in the probable cause affidavit. He emphasizes, however, that knowingly or recklessly misleading the magistrate in a probable cause affidavit—whether by omissions or outright lies— only violates the Fourth Amendment if the omissions and lies were material to probable cause. He claims that his weren’t, but we disagree. Materiality depends on whether the affidavit demonstrates probable cause when the lies are taken out and the exculpatory evidence is added in. And when that is done here, Benner’s affidavit fails to establish probable cause to believe that Rainsberger murdered his mother. Because it is clearly established that it violates the Fourth Amendment “to use deliberately falsified allegations to demonstrate probable cause,” Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 168 (1978), Benner is not entitled to qualified immunity."
Rainsberger was charged with murdering his elderly mother and was held for two months. He claims that the detective who built the case against him, Benner, submitted a probable cause affidavit that contained lies and omitted exculpatory evidence. When the prosecutor dismissed the case because of...
law.justia.com
If I am wrong I am happy to learn it.
jmo
I'll restate my view so that it is hopefully a bit clearer. Then respond to the above.
Probable cause in the affidavit largely hangs on the tip interview with the officer which meshes with the 3 juvenile girls. To that we can add that RAs own interview content, e.g but now claiming a different time. That establishes the low bar of PC IMO, because he puts himself at the scene, dressed like bridge guy etc. Now of course you can argue about whether the tip was poorly recorded, whether the witnesses are too erratic etc etc but those are trial issues.
Then we have Ligget's potential falsehood/misrepresentation. If the allegations are correct, then it is indeed a bad look. However I do not lightly accept this. IMO if it were clearly so, they'd have laid it out in black and white and not had a 130 page FM. But even if it is so, it is IMO, not enough. e.g had the witness only seen a muddy man and not a bloody man - that is still highly suspicious. These differences in testimony are really a trial issue.
But I do agree if Ligget misstated it is not great, because whomever drafted the SWA had the source documents to go from precisely to ensure these mistakes don't happen. I'd never have dreamed of drafting in the witness statement from memory!
Now as fas as the 'exculpatory evidence' and the SWA goes
First it is not clear to me how the prosecution can be withholding anything before the discovery deadline had past. This all happened months before the deadline. I am well aware from previous trials i've followed that sometimes there are 'dark arts' where stuff is slow walked or attempts made to conceal. The defence alleges such attempts were underway but this is not proven. Perhaps you can explain how there was a discovery violation here when the deadline was not yet past? To my mind, they were not yet obliged to discover the material even if they were playing games.
Second, to my mind the previous suspects are simply not relevant to the fact in issue. The fact in issue is did Ligget lie about the witness ID stuff in the Affidavit. All the odinism stuff and crime scene analysis does not prove one way or other whether he lied about those narrow points.
Third, were the prior suspects "exculpatory'? In my view, the exculpatory content must go directly to the probable cause in the search warrant. e.g a witness who said he met RA that day at 2pm for a coffee. The Odinist theory claims that law enforcement didn't investigate these other guys to find the evidence against them. But in my view it does not actually introduce any material evidence that they are involved.
Alternate suspects would much more clearly go to the arrest affidavit. e.g DNA of an unknown suspect on the victims. Again, we'll have to have a hearing about whether any of this will even be admissible as a trial theory.
All in all, I don't believe the defence seriously contends Odinism was relevant to the SWA PC. If they had the goods, they would have drafted a hard core document setting out the lies clearly for the judge and citing the authorities. It would collapse the case!
* Please take all of the above as my highly overvalued opinion *
