Mugshot of Delaware auditor Kathy McGuiness after being arrested for corruption charges. Credit: Delaware DOJ via Wikimedia Commons 'A Dagger at the Heart'?: Lawyer Says Ex-Delaware Auditor Needs New Trial Because of Judge's Remark
The charges brought against McGuiness centered on her hiring her daughter and structuring payments to a contractor in a way that avoided financial oversight.
November 15, 2023 at 04:41 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Delaware Law Weekly
A Superior Court judge's comment and prosecutors' handling of potentially exculpatory evidence added up to an unfair trial for Kathy McGuiness, the former Delaware auditor's attorney argued before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The constitutionality of the 2022 trial collapsed, said Steve Wood of McCarter & English, when he was cross examining the state's chief investigator, who admitted to making false statements to a witness as an investigatory technique. Wood said Superior Court Judge William C. Carpenter Jr. neutralized his primary argument by telling the jury the state's investigation was trustworthy, a comment on the investigator's credibility that was so key to McGuiness' defense that it couldn't be overlooked.
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