Convicting an innocent person should be like a ships captain having a collision with another ship or running aground. They should certainly never be given the opportunity to do it again.

And, yes, I know this would have a “chilling effect” and “well, (hand wringing) if we did that nobody would want the job”, etc. Good. The slimeballs would find something else to do and we’d be left with the right kind of people doing the job.

The open file system is also correct but won’t totally solve the problem without the above teeth. The prosecutors would just “lose” stuff they didn’t like.

2) He is probably not going to be re-elected as every Police Union will have him marked as “soft on crime>’

They were not fired for failing to turn over the evidence (which is bad enough) but for perpetrating a fraud on the court in proffering that affidavit (i.e., committing perjury).

I doubt seriously they would have even been disciplined for merely failing to disclose the exculpatory evidence.

And especially at the federal level, the resource disparity is crushing. The DOJ can run grinding trial campaigns, hitting the same defendant for years in many cases. In fact, the US attorneys don’t like to admit defeat, so once they pick a target they don’t like to stop until they can find a way to turn some minor misstep into a felony. Most defendants just plea out rather than take on the beast.

Of course, there’s a more basic problem. It violates the Fifth Amendment rule against self-incrimination. You’re forcing the defense, acting as agent for the accused, to present information that might lead to conviction. And it makes it likely that defense attorneys will not want to hire experts or investigators without knowing exactly what they will find. So you’d actually make it harder for defense counsel to vindicate the accused, for fear that the investigators might in the meantime discover evidence that corroborates the prosecution’s story. The prosecution gets enough undeserved credibility from juries as a default; it doesn’t also need to commandeer the efforts of defense experts to undermine the defense.

It’s the job of the government (at least nominally) to find out the truth and determine who should be punished based on all available facts. It’s the job of the defense only to protect the accused, not to get at the truth. So the prosecution should have to make all information available to the defense as part of their search for what happened, but the defense should be able to select a strategy best able to defend the accused.

Different rules because they have different functions.

They probably weren’t “receptive” or “pliable” enough, know what I mean?