State v. McCoy

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The Supreme Court held that inmates charged in criminal cases, some of whose telephone calls and noncontact visits have been recorded and reviewed by the Department of Corrections, are not entitled, under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), to a review of all calls and visits even though the Department has limited its review to only some of the recorded conversations.While the Department automatically records all calls and visits of all inmates, when a Department, acting as an investigative arm of the State, reviews some of those calls and visits as part of the investigation into an inmate's particular criminal case, the calls and visits reviewed are subject to Brady's disclosure requirements. Defendant issued a subpoena to the Department seeking the production of more than 1500 audio recordings of calls and visits of Defendant's four codefendants. The trial court granted in part the motions to quashed filed by the State and the Department, concluding that Defendant must first make a showing that the recordings contained exculpatory information. The Appellate Court affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because the recordings at issue were not part of the investigation of the State's case against Defendant, Defendant was not entitled to review the recorded conversations. View "State v. McCoy" on Justia Law