Articles Posted in DUI Defense

If you are charged with drunk driving in Michigan the prosecutor has a legal and ethical duty to provide your attorney with any evidence that might be helpful to your defense.  This includes things like police reports, witness statements, video recordings or chemical tests.

This legal obligation was affirmed in the recent USSC case of Weary v. Warden.[i]  Decided March 7, 2016, this case stands for the proposition that a prosecutor must disclose to a defendant all material evidence. Evidence qualifies as material when there is “‘any reasonable likelihood’” it could have “‘affected the judgment of the jury.’” To prevail on a claim that such evidence is material a defendant not show that he “more likely than not” would have been acquitted had the new evidence been admitted. He must show only that the new evidence is sufficient to “undermine confidence” in the verdict.

In this particular case, the defendant Michael Wearry was on death row in Louisiana. Wearry’s defense at trial rested on an alibi. He claimed that, at the time of the murder, he had been at a wedding reception in Baton Rouge, 40 miles away. Prosecutor argued in closing arguments that all three witnesses establishing the alibi were related to the defendant.