The judge was quite upset with the Prosecution’s failure to provide the Defense with exculpatory testimony from Bill Allen former CEO of the now defunct Veco, the company that did so many favors for Stevens.
In written testimony, Allen claimed that he thought Stevens would have paid for all the renovations Veco had done for the Senator, if the company had billed him the full amount. This was not made known to Stevens’ defense team.
When this was released, the judge still refused to call a mistrial, and as everyone knows by now Ted Stevens was found guilty on 7 counts.
So, what are his chances for a new trial?
I searched for any mention of this question in SD and didn’t find anything. However, if it turns out this is a rehash, please Mods, kill this OP.
There is a rule that the prosecution must turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense.
On appeal, the appellate court must first resolve if this error happened. It seems clear that it did, based solely on your recounting of the trial judge’s reaction.
Then the court has to ask: was the result of this error sufficient to undermine confidence in the verdict? In other words, if the jury heard and believed that evidence, is there a substantial likelihood that the verdict would have been different?
I don’t think so. Stevens was charged with failing to disclose that he got home renovations without being charged for them. Even if the jury believes that the contractor believed Stevens would have paid, he’s still guilty of the failure to disclose. The defense could have used this fact to paint a sympathetic picture ot the jury, but it’s not, from a legal perspective, a harpoon.
I would be very surprised if this fact led to a new trial.