Virginia courts to allow defendants to see police reports, witness lists

[proboardslol]

https://www.roanoke.com/washingtonpost/uncategorized/in-reversal-virginia-courts-to-allow-defendants-to-see-police/article_eeecc935-7f34-5d3c-b4a2-0dd1ee2a991a.html

For defendants facing a criminal trial in Virginia, there is no requirement that prosecutors provide any police reports, witness statements or a witness list to the defense team.
Some prosecutors do it anyway, some do not.
A 15-year procession of committees and reports seemed poised to change that in 2015, but the Virginia Supreme Court abruptly shelved all changes, with the chief justice saying that “such fundamental and sweeping changes in the system … seem unwise at this time.”
But the state Supreme Court has decided the time has come.
In an order issued Wednesday, the court changed Virginia’s rules of criminal procedure to require commonwealth’s attorneys to allow defendants to review — but not copy — all relevant police reports in a case and all witness statements. Those reports and statements were specifically excluded from pretrial discovery by the state’s Rule 3A:11.

[Bee York]

I'm completely ok with the prosecution being required to provide that information, as long as the witness list part is anonymized. It just seems like not being required to provide that information could lead to a lot of abuse by prosecutors.

[Clovis]

Yeah, I can just imagine somebody in the mob organising hits against witnesses unless their details are obfuscated in some way.