The State sought to detain Hyppolite, who was charged with murder. It told the court that he had been identified by an eyewitness but failed to tell defendant several pieces of information that undermined the identification. When he learned about the new information he sought to reopen the hearing, but the judge determined that even with the new evidence he would have still detained the defendant so he refused to reopen the hearing. In an amicus brief, the ACLU-NJ argued that whenever the State failed to provide required, exculpatory information prior to a detention hearing, the defendant should be able to reopen the hearing. The brief also suggested that intentional or egregious failures to provide discovery could be addressed through referrals to ethics boards.
