I need legal advice concerning a bill of discovery?

Question

My brother is currently in jail on several charges and he declares his innonence. He has been locked up since March, had three prelimary's, and a line up. He was not identified inthe line up and the person involved even said it wasn't him.

He is having a problem getting his BILL OF DISCOVERY and is on his way to yet another (his fifth in fact) arraignment. They keep postponing it because they do not have this information.

Please explain what a bill of discovery is, and also please explain if this is against the law what the Philadelphia court system is doing.

As far as I know the BOD is evidence against him, and that is something that he OR his Public Defender should have.

Why hasn't he gotten it? Can they give you five arraignments?

Answer 1

I haven't seen that term used, but then Penn often calls things different from other states.

My guess is that it is the information that the prosecution is required to disclose (mandatory discovery) to the defense.

And no, generally, you can only be arraigned multiple times if there are multiple different criminal charges (at least one per arraignment). The occasional continuance may happen, if he's out on bail, but not multiple actual continuances.

Answer 2

The defense is entitled to all discovery. That is and may include police reports, evidence (or pictures) and anything else the prosecution intends to use against him in court. He probably didn't have five arraignments unless there are 5 different pending charges against him. They were probably just pre-trial hearing or status hearings, probably on what the hold up is on the discovery. I'm not sure what a "Bill of" discovery is. I've just heard it called discovery and the defense should have it by now. The public defender isn't obligated to tuen it all over to the defendant at his whim. If the defense attorney has it, he should be fine. I know that inmates can get really bored in jail and want to pick over their discovery with a fine-toothed comb, but the attorney will do that when he meets with his client at the jail with him.