The Michigan Brady-Giglio-Santobello List: What It Is, Why It Exists, and How You Can Contribute

Three Decisions. One Framework.

Brady v. Maryland, Giglio v. United States, and Santobello v. New York are the three cases that define what criminal prosecutors owe defendants in the disclosure and plea process. They were decided across a span of twelve years, and together they answer a question that still produces litigation in every state: when the government withholds something it was required to share, what happens?

Brady was decided in 1963. The Supreme Court held that the suppression of evidence favorable to the accused by the prosecution violates due process where the evidence is material to guilt or punishment. It does not matter whether the suppression was intentional. The obligation exists independent of good faith.

Giglio extended that logic nine years later. The issue was not just evidence of guilt or innocence, but evidence that could undermine the credibility of government witnesses. Agreements with cooperating witnesses, promises made in exchange for testimony, prior inconsistent statements: all of it falls within the disclosure obligation. A conviction built on testimony the jury would have weighed differently, had they known what the prosecutor knew, is a conviction built on incomplete information.

Santobello addressed a different problem: the broken promise. When a plea agreement is reached, the government is bound to it. Informal commitments made during negotiation carry weight. A defendant who pleads guilty on the basis of representations that are later walked back has not received what the constitution guarantees in the plea process.

These three cases are well-settled law. They are also, in practice, routinely tested. The question of what “material” means, what counts as a promise, what a prosecutor knew and when. These questions are litigated constantly. And in Michigan, as in most states, the enforcement of these obligations depends almost entirely on the defendants and attorneys who identify the failure and have the resources to pursue it.

What the List Is and Is Not

The Michigan BGS List is not a prosecutorial misconduct hotline. It is not a complaint clearinghouse. It is a documented accountability resource, drawing on are drawn from the public record, appellate decisions, bar complaint proceedings, court filings, and reviewed submissions from individuals with direct knowledge of specific matters.

The list is organized around specific prosecutors and specific documented conduct patterns. Where the record reflects a sustained pattern of disclosure problems or broken commitments, that pattern is what gets documented. Individual incidents that appear anomalous, without additional record support, are noted but treated differently than institutional drift.

The list is also part of my doctoral capstone research. I am a doctoral candidate in Human Services and Organizational Leadership at Capella University, and this project sits at the intersection of two questions I have been working on for years: how do institutional systems normalize constitutional violations, and what does accountability infrastructure actually look like when it functions? The BGS List is one answer to the second question: a structured, public-facing evidentiary resource that is designed to be used by attorneys, researchers, journalists, and appellate advocates.

Why Michigan, Why Now

Michigan has a well-documented set of prosecutorial accountability gaps. The Attorney Grievance Commission processes complaints against attorneys, including prosecutors, but the vast majority of those complaints result in no public action. Appellate decisions that find Brady or Giglio violations rarely result in bar discipline. The disconnect between what courts find and what the AGC does about it is itself a pattern worth documenting.

At the same time, Michigan’s public court records, MiFile system, and appellate decisions are more accessible than many states. The record exists. It is a question of organizing it.

My own reporting on the Kalamazoo County prosecutor network, on withheld plea negotiation emails, on confirmed Giglio-implicated conduct involving named prosecutors, has made clear that individual investigations produce individual records. A list produces something different: a searchable, citable, institutional accounting that can inform future litigation, future oversight, and future policy.

How to Contribute

If you have direct documented knowledge of a Brady, Giglio, or Santobello issue involving a Michigan prosecutor, meaning you have court records, transcripts, correspondence, appellate decisions, or other documentary evidence, I want to hear from you.

Submissions are anonymous by default. I review every submission before any information is considered for inclusion. Submitting does not guarantee that an entry will be added to the list; it means your account enters the review process. I am looking for documented patterns, not allegations unsupported by any record.

If you are an attorney who has litigated a Brady or Giglio issue in Michigan and obtained relief, or who has a pending matter involving documented disclosure failure, your case record is particularly useful to this research.

If you are a defendant or family member with direct experience of a plea agreement that was altered or withdrawn after acceptance, and you have documentation of the original terms, that is also within scope.

The list is a living document. It will grow as the record grows. The more the record reflects the actual landscape of prosecutorial disclosure in Michigan, the more useful it becomes to everyone with a legitimate interest in that landscape, including attorneys, courts, researchers, oversight bodies, and the public.

A Note to Prosecutor and Public Defender Offices

I want to address both sides of the courtroom directly, because this resource exists in the space between them and it cannot be useful without both.

Most prosecutor offices in Michigan maintain some version of an internal Brady or Giglio list, a running record of law enforcement officers and witnesses whose credibility issues require disclosure in any case where they appear. These lists exist because the constitutional obligation requires them. They are maintained quietly, updated inconsistently, and almost universally tied to institutional memory rather than institutional infrastructure. When a chief prosecutor leaves, when a detective retires, when an office changes leadership, the list does not automatically transfer. The knowledge travels with the person. The obligation stays with the office.

That gap is not a failure of individual prosecutors. It is a structural problem, and it is one that the BGS List is designed to address from the outside in. A public, documented record of known disclosure issues does not replace an office’s internal list. It supplements it, provides independent corroboration, and creates a resource that persists regardless of personnel turnover.

If you work in a prosecutor’s office and you are aware of a disclosure failure that was never formally addressed, a broken plea commitment that was never corrected, or a pattern of conduct that your office inherited without documentation, you can submit that information confidentially. Your name will not appear. I am not building a public list of whistleblowers. I am building a documented record of conduct, and the origin of the information is less important to this research than the accuracy of it.

If you work in a public defender’s office, the BGS List is a direct practice resource. Documented disclosure failures involving prosecutors active in your jurisdiction belong here. If you have obtained appellate relief on a Brady or Giglio issue, or if you are currently litigating one, that case record is precisely the kind of material that makes this list useful to the next defender working against the same prosecutor in the next case.

I will say plainly what should be obvious: both sets of offices operate under ethical obligations that govern what they can disclose, when, and how. Navigating those obligations is your responsibility, not mine. What I can tell you is that this research is academic in purpose, confidential in submission, and designed to produce systemic analysis, not individual exposure. If a submission raises concerns about an active case, I will not publish it in a form that could affect ongoing proceedings.

The value of this resource is proportional to the quality of the record behind it. Offices that contribute to building that record, from either side of the aisle, are contributing to the kind of structural accountability that makes the system function better for everyone who has to operate inside it.