Abstract
The protection of a defendant’s rights in the criminal justice system is often balanced against concerns of judicial efficiency and accuracy, as well as the ability of prosecutors’ offices to effectively pursue convictions. In many jurisdictions, the obligations of prosecutors to turn over evidence remain largely unaltered from constitutional minimums. Such conservative approaches exist in stark contrast to more open-file systems that make use of digital infrastructure and e-discovery practices to alleviate many of the original concerns surrounding such higher standards. This note discusses these different approaches as well as the general development of state discovery obligations and concludes by suggesting how those jurisdictions that still adhere more closely to constitutional minimums might discover gains through the use of digital infrastructure that supports a higher level of prosecutorial responsibility.
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