Ben Kruidbos, Corey’s former director of information technology, was fired after testifying at a pre-trial hearing on June 6 that prosecutors failed to turn over potentially embarrassing evidence extracted from Martin’s cell phone to the defense, as required by evidence-sharing laws.
“We will be filing a whistleblower action in (Florida’s Fourth Judicial District) Circuit Court,” said Kruidbos’ attorney Wesley White, himself a former prosecutor who was hired by Corey but resigned in December because he disagreed with her prosecutorial priorities. He said the suit will be filed within the next 30 days.
Hope this is just the beginning. The Richardson hearing is still pending, I believe. I also wonder who has standing to file a case of prosecutorial misconduct against Corey and her lackeys.
I will. Assuming Ben Kruidbos’ assertions are correct, I hope he wins his lawsuit, and everyone involved in the prosecutor’s office is fired and disbarred.
Not in so many words, but yes. While I don’t expect anyone to rise to the level of accusing the whistleblower of treason this time, some dog-whistle bullshit about how he was wrong to go behind his superiors’ backs to oppose their behaviour would not be unexpected.
Corey has a history of both bad behavior and firing people for disloyalty. How long was Kruidbos working with her? Did he suddenly grow a conscience, or is there something else involved? Interestingly, Kruidbos’ attorney is also an ex-prosecutor from her office who supposedly grew a conscience and left.
But how much general interest is there in debating this now, since Zimmerman was acquitted? I’d be more interested in debating whether they lost the case due to incompetence, in spite of the shenanigans, or if it was deliberately charged and lost as part of a political maneuver.
If there is an investigation, they better look at all the past convictions as well. I’m sure there must be cases where they weren’t out-lawyered and their misconduct prevailed.
Wow. She’s even tried to get Alan freaking Dershowitz fired for criticizing her.
The thing in this article that absolutely shocks me is this paragraph:
But will Corey ever be disciplined for prosecutorial abuses? It’s unlikely. State attorneys cannot be brought before the bar while they remain in office. Complaints can be filed against Corey, but they will be deferred until she is no longer state attorney. The governor can remove her from office, but otherwise her position — and her license — are safe.
Is this true? A Florida prosecutor is immune to bar complaints while in office?
The evidence (sexy pictures of his girlfriends, pictures of some bling, pictures of marijuana, pictures of a gun (there was no dispute that Martin was unarmed, so any pictures of him holding a gun are irrelevant) was patently irrelevant to the issues at trial (who did what on the fateful evening). The State’s Attorney correctly inferred that this was not evidence exchangeable in discovery as it was plainly not relevant nor likely to lead to admissible evidence. The judge found likewise.
The Director of IT doesn’t get to make prosecutorial decisions, the elected State’s Attorney does. The Director of IT did not abide by this, and actively attempted to undermine a prosecution his boss was pursuing. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, my friend.
But please do keep hope alive. The more you invest in winning this hopeless case, the more I will relish your ineluctable disappointment.
WRT the text messages about fighting in particular, the judge barred them not because they were irrelevant, but because they couldn’t be proved to have originated from Martin. The defense argument was that they might have been able to verify them - e.g. by tracking down the people on the other end of the messages - had they received them in time, but they got them too late. The judge’s position was - AFAICT - that as a practical matter they couldn’t be admitted as a matter of law due to the uncertainty, and the defense could appeal the verdict if they lost.
That’s a far cry from saying they were properly not turned over.
[Unless the texts had nothing to do with Kruidbos - the article is unclear about this.]
The evidence included text messages about fighting people and punching them in the nose to make them bleed. Pretty relevant for the defense, wouldn’t you say?
Yes, I am on pins and needles. If this lawsuit fails, it will crush me
I would think the pictures of (possibly) stolen jewelry and marijuana plant might back up Zimmerman’s assertion that “he looks like he’s up to no good, he looks like he’s on drugs or something”. I wouldn’t consider that “irrelevant” to the defense.
No, I’m going to disagree with this analysis. The text messages about fighting were at least reasonably likely to lead to the development of admissible evidence. The prosecution’s narrative (to the extent a narrative could be discerned) was that Martin was not any likelier than the average teenager to engage in fisticuffs. Text messages about engaging in fighting, to the degree they could be reliably attributed to Martin, are relevant to rebut this general narrative.
It’s not for the State’s Attorney to decide that the text messages cannot be attributed to a given author. That’s a challenge for the defense. There is certainly no per se inadmissibility concerning text messages on a phone.
The text messages were Brady material, and should have been turned over.
No, both those are too far attenuated from the events at issue. Zimmerman had no way of knowing those were on the phone, and pictures of marijuana don’t actually intoxicate you.
If the messages suggest that Martin had a history of getting into fights, then those messages are very relevant, because they make it more plausable that Martin might have started a fight with Zimmerman. Witholding that information is the sort of thing that should definitely lead to a disciplinary hearing.
I admit to a bias here… as someone who was more than once in a position to see some very close calls made by prosecutors on what was, and was not, Brady material, I come to this question with a chip on my shoulder.
The reason is that as a defense lawyer, this puts me in an untenable situation. I have to go to trial, not knowing X. I lose.
Now I discover the existence of X. The prosecution says, “X is not exculpatory, so I had no duty to disclose it.”
The appeals court disagrees. “X is relevant, and should have been disclosed.” But does that automatically mean a new trial? No! On appeal, I have to show that there was a reasonable probability that knowing X would have changed the outcome of the trial. That’s a somewhat high bar to overcome.
As a matter of policy, I’d like to see a rule that says, “All evidence for which even a scintilla of relevance might exist, but which the prosecutor feels is not disclosable, must be revealed in camera to a special master.” Or even the judge, ex parte, if need be. Something to get a set of unbiased eyes on it.
