In my limited experience and understanding, I would think any information pertaining to the case that is possible evidence would be presented to the court in order to determine the most appropriate verdict. So why seal documents if they could heavily impact the verdict? Isn’t that like saying “Hey, the defendants gun was recovered, but we’re going to set that fact aside, and you can’t use that against him.”
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Sealed record ARE often used in trial. They just won’t be released to the public. Judges often will unseal records at the end of a trial, some may be unsealed after a set amount of time goes by. Sometimes they are never unsealed.
If the prosecution intends to use the sealed evidence at trial, the defense will have access to those documents, but the public won’t.
Records can be sealed because of the age of the participants (if kids are involved), if they are afraid of biasing a jury that has yet to be picked, if State secrets are involved, or if it could damage on-going investigations.
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