Legal Rights for Law Enforcement over Information Disclosure
Â
Video Transcribed: Brady-Giglio? What? Brady what? What is that? I’m Mike Ashworth, a personal injury lawyer in Oklahoma with the Wirth Law Firm. Right now, there are approximately 3,000 bills that have been introduced in the legislature between the two chambers: the Senate and the House. They put out a tag sheet of the ones that are the most intriguing and where they’re trending, more people are looking at them. I spent about half of my 39 years as a lawyer, as a prosecutor, and about a half serving civil cases. Presently in this life, I’m doing civil work. Having said that, under the law, there’s something called Brady. Brady is a leading Supreme Court case, and it says that prosecutors are not allowed dirty pools. They’re not allowed to pull surprises.
Then there’s the other half of that called Giglio, G-I-G-L-I-O. Basically, what that means is that if a prosecutor has reason to believe that a police officer or law enforcement member that is subject to being called as a witness in a court case has evidence of misconduct, mistrust, punishment, or discipline, the prosecutor is to turn that information over to the defense, so the defense can do due diligence and see if it may impact the credibility of that particular officer. Well, there was a great controversy a few years ago in a DA’s district, not Tulsa where I am, but in Northeastern Oklahoma, where a district attorney turned over such material to the defense. And there have actually been lawsuits, one of which is still pending, about liability, slander, and defamation casting people in a false light.
So there’s now been introduced as part and parcel of that case, I suppose. House Bill 2132, a criminal procedure prohibiting law enforcement agencies from disclosing certain information, codification, and effective date. This is a law that would in effect allow law enforcement that if they feel they’ve been mischaracterized by a prosecutor’s office handing this over, they can demand that it be retracted and not provided. However, I’m just now reading this bill, so give me a little bit of time to work my way through it. 2,000 bills hit in the last six days because the deadline for them was this weekend. But having said that, basically, it gives them a right to demand an attorney general investigation.
And if the attorney general finds it was not proper to turn it over, or it was mischaracterized and been turned over, it gives the police officer certain legal rights to bring suit and possibly more. Here at the Wirth Law Firm, we do criminal law. I do personal injury law, so go to tulsapersonalinjurylawyer.pro, that’s my unit. But having been around a long time, I find laws like this very interesting. So we want to make sure we stay on top of the law, not only as it presently exists, but as it is being presently drafted because that makes us experts. That means as soon as that law hits the streets, November 1, if it’s an emergency clause, that means we’re on it. We know it, we’re ready, we’ve briefed. I’m Tulsa legislation attorney Mike Ashworth, Wirth Law Office. You’re worth it. It’s worth a call. Call us first. We’ll get it done.
