EVIDENTIARY ERRORS: HOW BRADY VIOLATIONS AND INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE UNDERMINE THE PURSUIT OF A FAIR TRIAL

Abstract

As with any system run by humans, the American criminal justice system experiences errors within its processes and procedures. Two of these errors are: Brady violations, in which a prosecutor does not turn over exculpatory evidence, and inadmissible evidence, in which the jury hears something during trial that they were not supposed to hear. In this paper, I analyze the sources of these errors, the solutions we currently have for these errors, and the psychological effects these errors can have. Through this analysis, I propose several possible recommendations for changing elements of the legal system, or the actors within it, in the hope that the system can better prevent and account for these errors in the future.