Years ago, I wrote this post about when evidence of an officer’s prior misconduct must be disclosed by the prosecution as material impeachment information under Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972). The Fourth Circuit recently decided a case on point. This post discusses the Fourth Circuit case and other recent authority. In essence, it updates my previous post. The new Fourth Circuit case. The new case is United States v. Banks, 104 F.4th 496 (4th Cir. 2024). Phil Dixon previously summarized it here. A timeline of the pertinent events in that case, with some of the details being drawn from the district court opinion, is as follows: 2009: Baltimore police officer Ivo Louvado and two other officers seize three kilograms of cocaine during a drug investigation, sell the cocaine, and pocket the proceeds. 2010: Louvado is assigned to work with an ATF task force. 2015 or earlier: State and federal law enforcement agencies begin investigating the Murdaland Mafia, a Bloods-affiliated street gang in Baltimore. 2016: Louvado’s ATF task force joins the investigation. 2016-17: Louvado participates in the investigation. He signs several search warrant and wiretap applications. Only twice does he undertake investigative activities outside the presence of other officers. One is a brief surveillance observation of a suspect’s home. The other is a search of an informant before a controlled buy, though the buy itself was monitored by other officers. 2016-17: Multiple members of the Murdaland Mafia are indicted on federal drug and racketeering charges. July 2017: A Baltimore [...]
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