Tempest v. State
Annotate this CaseIn 1992, a jury found Defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. In 2004, Defendant filed an application for postconviction relief pursuant to Rhode Island’s Innocence Protection Act. For almost a decade, various orders were entered and discovery took place. In 2015, Defendant filed a second amended application for postconviction relief. The hearing justice granted Defendant’s application for postconviction relief and vacated his conviction, finding two Brady violations based on the State’s suppression of favorable evidence and a due process violation resulting from the police department’s unduly suggestive interviewing of witnesses. The Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s judgment vacating Defendant’s conviction, holding that the hearing justice erred in vacating Defendant’s conviction on the basis of the former prosecutor’s failure to disclose pretrial statements of one of the State’s witnesses, and this claim of error was dispositive of the State’s appeal.
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