The Constitution requires that prosecutors disclose favorable and exculpatory information to the defense in criminal cases. Failure to live up to the obligation can (and unfortunately has) led to wrongful convictions. A rule being considered by federal judges for the District of Columbia detailing what must be disclosed and when would be a step in the right direction.

The rule would set courtwide standards for disclosure of information. Its impetus goes back to the botched prosecution in 2008 of then-Sen. Ted Stevens. Prosecutors’ failure to disclose relevant information to the defense prompted U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over the trial, to seek a rule change for all federal courts. When that effort failed, attention was narrowed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

As the nonprofit Constitution Project, which seeks bipartisan consensus on legal issues, said last week in support of the new rule, “Even when prosecutors are acting in good faith, the inconsistent, shifting and sometimes contradictory standards for criminal discovery have made compliance … difficult.”

The best way to ensure the timely and fair exchange of information would be to give defense counsel access to all investigative information, with certain exceptions – but there seems little chance of federal prosecutors moving to such a system anytime soon. That makes all the more urgent the court’s adoption of this modest reform.