Emily Bazelon, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, co-host of Slate's "Political Gabfest" podcast, and the Truman Capote fellow for creative writing and law at Yale Law School, talks about why discovery reform is important for defendants in criminal cases, and comments on the other legal news that the president may have asked Gary Cohn, his former chief economic advisor, to interfere in the AT&T-Time Warner merger.
"New York has an oddly draconian law, advocates call it a 'blindfold law' because it allows prosecutors to withhold evidence until the morning of trial. That means if you’re charged with a crime you just may not know what the state has against you," says @emilybazelon. pic.twitter.com/un5q1vudma
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) March 5, 2019
"More than 95% of people charged with crimes, their convictions are obtained through guilty pleas. You may plead guilty and have no sense ever of exactly what evidence the state has + whether the state knows something that could help you prove your innocence," says @emilybazelon.
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) March 5, 2019