The lawyer for former Beverly library director Thomas Scully said police failed until recently to turn over evidence that could clear his client of child pornography charges. Lawyer Ronald Ranta said the evidence, which he described only as “images,” would have convinced a grand jury not to indict Scully in July 2005.
“I’m troubled that police didn’t turn over what appears to be exculpatory evidence until three years later,” Ranta told Judge Howard Whitehead yesterday in Salem Superior Court.
A GJ is not a trial court
The job of a grand jury is not to try the case, it is not to be finders of fact, it is to ascertain if there is probable cause that a crime has been committed, and that the person accused. if such crime was indeed committed, was the perpetrator.
Nothing more, nothing less. A trial is the appropriate venue for defense counsel to present exculpatory evidence. Discovery provides the defense with all of the evidence the state possesses. If evidence is not produced upon appropriate demand, it can’t be used against the defendant. Additionally if the evidence could (not would but could) be exculpatory and had not been produced the Court must vacate the conviction are retry the defendant. In this case it seems it was produced; however long after the defendant was arrested.
Mass is quite clear that the state not producing exculpatory evidence can reverse a conviction, even if the evidence is only generally and not specifically requested. [Tucceri, 412 Mass. 401, 589 N.E.2d 1216 (1992)] And of course we also have Brady v. Maryland.
This is really a non-story, although it certainly would serve as an additional warning against allowing underage library patrons to use your home computer.
This is of course not legal advice and I am not a lawyer in Mass.