Department of Justice v. Landano

(Redirected from United States Department of Justice v. Landano )

Department of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the government is not entitled to a presumption that a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) of the Freedom of Information Act whenever the source provides information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the course of a criminal investigation.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 Murder of Officer Snow

  • 1.2 Appeals

  • 1.3 Historical context

  • 1.4 Arguments

• 2 Opinion of the Court

• 3 Subsequent developments

• 4 See also

• 5 Footnotes

• 6 References

• 7 External links

Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Department_of_Justice_v._Landano&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Background")

Murder of Officer Snow

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Department_of_Justice_v._Landano&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Murder of Officer Snow")

On August 13, 1976, during a robbery by two gunmen of the Hi-Way Check Cashing Service in Kearny, New Jersey , one of the gunman killed Newark police officer John Snow. A Hudson County Grand Jury indicted Allen Roller, Victor Forni, Bruce Reen, and Vincent James Landano for felony murder and armed robbery , along with other offenses.

The trials of Forni and Reen were severed from the trial of Roller and Landano. Roller entered into a plea deal with the Hudson County Prosecutor and gave damaging testimony against Landano during the trial. The state believed that Roller and Forni planned the robbery, but that only Landano and Roller actually participated in the crime.

An unindicted co-conspirator, David Lee Clyburn, testified that Roller and Forni planned the robbery, and that they planned to "take care of" a police officer who usually delivered large amounts of cash. Clyburn stated that he withdrew from the plan as he did not want to kill a police officer, and was concerned that as the only black, the others would turn on him. Roller's testimony was different from Clyburn's. Roller stated that while planning the robbery, Forni offered to recruit "Jimmy" and that later Landano agreed to participate. Roller stated that Forni drove Landano and him to a parking lot, where they stole a car, and then Landano and Roller went to the site of the robbery.

Roller testified that after waiting they then robbed the Hi-Way Check Cashing Service. A customer, Colin McCormick identified Roller, but was unable to reliably identify Landano, stating that he never saw his face. The owner, Jacob Roth, and his son, Jonathan, also testified. Jacob stated that when the business was being robbed, he activated the silent alarm and "hit the deck", never looking up as the robbers took the cash. He tentatively identified Landano, saying that he "resembled" one of the robbers. Jonathan also identified Landano with uncertainty, noting that he only saw the robber for a second or two. John De Maritz, another customer, testified that Roller was the individual that entered the business and that he heard shots from outside.

Another man, Joseph Pascuitti, also testified against Landano. Pascuitti was the only one to witness the killing of Officer Snow, from his job adjacent to Hi-Way Check Cashing. Pascuitti stated that the shooter came towards the police car and shot Officer Snow without warning from two to three feet away. Prior to the trial, Pascuitti selected Forni's photograph as being the shooter, but that he was not certain.

Physical evidence found in the stolen car included a bloodstained jacket or vest, two pair of gloves, a blue hat, $60 in coins, a shell casing, and a partially filled coffee container. The blood type on the jacket matched that of Officer Snow, and was a relatively rare type. Two handguns were found in the river. Roller identified one of those as belonging to him, and the other as having been used by Landano. That handgun was registered to Forni. At the trial, Landano tried on the jacket, but it did not fit.

Landano testified in his own defense, and denied participating in the robbery. This was corroborated by his fiancé and her friend. In addition, Landano entered evidence that at 6:00 a.m., he was at a Staten Island methadone clinic and could not have made it back in time to help steal the car at 6:35 a.m.

Evidence showed that a motorcycle gang called "the Breed " planned the robbery, and that Landano was recruited for the crime. In May 1977, Landano was convicted on all counts and sentenced to imprisonment for life plus fifteen years.

Appeals

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Department_of_Justice_v._Landano&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Appeals")

In June 1977, Landano filed an appeal. In October 1978, Landano obtained a court order for the consideration of a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Judge Maurice A. Walsh, Jr. found the knowledge of evidence of prior robberies by Roller and Forni could have been important in the trial and that the knowledge of such evidence had been suppressed. If this knowledge had been revealed, Judge Walsh stated, then it "would have been probative in demonstrating, if Roller denied Forni's participation [in those robberies], that Roller was protecting Forni." However, the court decided that the suppression of this evidence did not violate _Brady v. Maryland _ because the evidence wasn't "material," meaning that the evidence would not have changed the trial's outcome.

After various petitions from Landano and various hearings, a federal judge released Landano from prison in 1989 after Landano served 13 years of his life sentence on the grounds that the prosecution had systematically withheld evidence. On March 12, 1992, a New Jersey Court of Appeals ordered an evidentiary hearing to consider claims stemming from documents that two people, including a witness at the trial, failed to identify a photo of Landano, the police department's report that a witness identified Victor Forni as the driver of the getaway car and not Landano, and the failure to submit this information to Landano and his defense team before the trial began. The New Jersey Court of Appeals also ordered the hearing to investigate any impact that any potentially lost or damaged materials could have had on the trial.

After the evidentiary hearing discovered that evidence was withheld at the trial, Landano believed that the Court's ruling in _Brady v. Maryland _ (373 U.S. 83) was violated when the prosecution in his murder trial withheld "material exculpatory evidence " (i.e. evidence extremely important for the defendant's case) during his trial. Landano filed [FOIA](htt

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