in court cases where one side is ordered to release all documents pertaining to a certain event/subject, what stops that party from simply hiding or destroying the evidence?

Question

I understand doing so would be illegal of course but nevertheless if you are a guilty and you know it is it really going to be such a big leap for you to destroy your own incriminating evidence? I might of course be missing something or oversimplifying as well since my only knowledge of the court system is honestly from TV/movies.

In: Other

Answer 1

Any evidence you plan to use in the case has to be entered into the court proceedings (think exhibit A, exhibit B, etc). It’s usually the prosecutors that are presenting the evidence in a criminal case so if they want to use the evidence the court would know if the defense has been given all the evidence. As far as defense evidence, again you have to submit it to the court as evidence so there is a record, if you don’t provide the evidence to the prosecutors then the court will know and this will raise issues in the proceedings.

Alternatively, there is no mechanism requiring the defense to provide all evidence to the prosecutors if there is no plan to use it in the case. After all, the burden of proof is on the state/prosecutors and the defense isn’t going to willingly hand over damning evidence. There would be no penalty for them withholding that evidence.