Disclosure Flashcards
Disclosure Managers should be guided by these principles?
- The governing principle of disclosure is relevance. All relevant material contained on an investigation file is discoverable, unless withholding or deletion of the material is justified under sections 16, 17 or 18 of the Act.
- There is no obligation to acquire, for the purpose of satisfying disclosure obligations, material that is not already in police possession or control, or that is not held in recorded form. Section 15 of the Act refers.
- Disclosure is an on-going process and the reasons for withholding a document should be continually reassessed. In the event that the justification withholding no longer exists, the material should be provided to defence counsel.
- The disclosure process must be auditable, accountable and record disclosure decisions that are made in relation to a particular document.
- Effective file management systems are critical to the success of the disclosure process, i.e. you cannot disclose a document if you do not know that it exists.
On appointment to the role, the Disclosure Manager must?
- read the Disclosure Managers desk file
- access the current Serious Crime Template downloaded to the local district shared drive, for use during the investigation
- report to the 2IC to receive a briefing, tasking, establishing what information is and is not discoverable, and ongoing supervision.
The Disclosure Manager must?
• ensure all relevant and discoverable material is provided to defence counsel
• ensure all relevant and non-discoverable material is identified, listed and defence advised
• continually assess the risk to ensure that non-discoverable material is identified and not disclosed
• continually review to ensure that ongoing lawful justification to withhold exists for each document that is withheld
• ensure that robust auditable systems are employed to record disclosure decisions and actions (this includes compiling and maintaining the Disclosure Index)
• manage disclosure timeframes within the provisions of the Act, or as otherwise directed by the Courts
• retain and file all correspondence with defence counsel, both incoming and outgoing, in the 50000 series document category
• create a record in NIA of the fact of disclosure against the charge(s), and make a brief record of delivery of initial disclosure in NIA. Record in NIA that the Disclosure Index
is held in the operation file and the location of that file - e.g. File Path Name
Police have an obligation where the legal representative of a defendant is replaced, to ensure the replacement counsel is provided with all material previously disclosed. This may be achieved by?
Obtaining confirmation in writing from the replacement counsel that they have received all material previously disclosed from the outgoing counsel, or by providing the replacement counsel with a fresh copy.
The formats used to disclose documents to the defence are hard copy, electronic disclosure, or a combination of both. The disclosure method selected will depend on the?
- actual and anticipated scale of the investigation
- resources available to the Disclosure Manager
- technical ability of the Disclosure Manager
- investigation file being stored in electronic or hard copy format
- number of persons charged
- scale of the file/amount of material to be disclosed
- sensitivity of material
- defence counsel involved and any agreement reached for defence counsel to receive material in a particular format.
The Act creates no requirement for the prosecutor to supply defence counsel with a?
List of the material provided to defence. However, it is recommended such a list is provided because it enables defence counsel to conduct searches of the material themselves, rather than making continual requests of the Disclosure Manager for specific documents.
The prosecutor must provide defence counsel with a list of the material the prosecutor wishes to?
Withhold. Sections 12(2)(k) and 13(2)(b) of the Act refer.
An exact (duplicate) copy must be?
Produced and retained of all material provided to defence, in either electronic or hard copy format. The Crown should be provided with an identical copy of all material that is disclosed to defence counsel.
Pre-formatted letters relating to each stage of disclosure are contained within the Serious Crime Template. These relate to?
- initial disclosure
- further initial disclosure
- additional disclosure
- full disclosure.
The Disclosure Manager is responsible for maintaining the?
Disclosure Index, which is stored in the Serious Crime Template / Investigation Roles / Disclosure.
To meet the requirements of the Police Manual chapter ‘Criminal disclosure’, the Disclosure Index must be maintained to?
Record the dates and details of all requests made by defence counsel and the date the requests were responded to.
As a general principle, where two or more defendants are charged?
The same disclosure package should be provided to each defendant. A single Disclosure Index should
preferably be used for all defendants.
In consultation with the 2IC the Disclosure Manager will identify documents that may need to be?
Withheld or have deletions made to them.
10000 series documents are those documents where no justification for withholding them exists, in accordance with sections 16, 17 or 18 of the Act. Examples of 10000 series documents may include?
- Formal Statements, briefs of evidence and witness statements
- Visually Recorded Interview (VRI) transcripts
- Convictions of prosecution witnesses relevant to credibility
- Summaries of facts
- Notebook entries
- Job Sheets
- Specialists reports
- Expert evidence in the possession of the prosecution.
Other discoverable material which has not been assigned a document number must still be accounted for within the Disclosure Index. Examples of such documents may include?
- Chain of Custody sheets
- Documentary exhibits
- Area canvass documents
- Photographs
- DVDs, CDs and CCTV material
