Civil procedure: Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Pre-trial procedure: Discovery (Part Two)

Federal law.

Discovery in the United States is unique compared to other common law countries. In the United States, discovery is mostly performed by the litigating parties themselves, with relatively minimal judicial oversight. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure guide discovery in the U.S. federal court system. Most state courts follow a similar version based upon the FRCP, Chapter V "Depositions & Discovery" .

According to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the plaintiff must initiate a conference between the parties after the complaint was served to the defendants, to plan for the discovery process. The parties should attempt to agree on the proposed discovery schedule, and submit a proposed Discovery Plan to the court within 14 days after the conference. After that, the main discovery process begins which includes: initial disclosures, depositions, interrogatories, request for admissions (RFA) and request for production of documents (RFP). In most federal district courts, the formal requests for interrogatories, request for admissions and request for production are exchanged between the parties and not filed with the court. Parties, however, can file motions to compel discovery if responses are not received within the FRCP time limit. Parties can file a motion for a protective order if the discovery requests become unduly burdensome or for the purpose of harassment.

In federal criminal prosecutions, discovery rights originate from a number of important Supreme Court decisions and statutes, the most important of which are,

Brady v Maryland, (1963), which requires a prosecuting attorney to disclose to a defendant any material which is potentially exculpatory or that would impeach the credibility of a prosecution witness. Brady also applies to evidence that would mitigate the defendant's sentence if a defendant is convicted.

Jencks v United States, (1957), and the Jencks Act, which requires federal prosecutors to produce any witness statement in the government's possession that relates to the subject of the witness' testimony, if that witness will testify against the defendant.

Giglio v United States, (1972) and the resulting Giglio rule, which requires that any deal with a witness that might call the witness's credibility into question must be disclosed in court. As a consequence, any plea bargain or deal made by the prosecutor with a witness in exchange for testimony should be disclosed to the defense as part of the discovery process.

The formal discovery process for federal criminal prosecutions is outlined in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 16.