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By
D.C. Witness Staff
- February 11, 2020
Court
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Homicides
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During what would have been the first day of a murder trial, a DC Superior Court judge ruled to dismiss the case without prejudice due to the prosecution’s failure to hand over evidence.
Keith Archie, 39, is charged with second-degree murder while armed and tampering with evidence for allegedly stabbing Demond Marcel Rush on the 3600 block of 22nd Street, SE in 2017.
More than 1,000 pages of documents of evidence in the case were made available to the prosecution two weeks ago, but counsel failed to turn the documents over to the defense until the night before trial. It is not clear what the documents contained.
“I don’t know about you, but it takes me a long time to read 1,000 pages,” said Jason Tulley, one of Archie’s two defense attorneys.
DC Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz said that the defense would not have enough time to read over the new evidence.
One of the three prosecutors asked Judge Kravitz to issue an instruction to the jury because the prosecution thought a dismissal was too extreme.
“Dismissal strikes me as quite extreme… but I’m at a loss,” Judge Kravitz said. “I don’t know how this trial could go forward right now.”
Judge Kravitz ruled to dismiss the case without prejudice.
The prosecutor said she plans to have a grand jury indict the case, again. “We will all be back here in a week or two,” she said.
This article was written by MiriYam Judd and Wyatt Mullins
This article was written by MiriYam Judd and Wyatt Mullins