Not necessarily, Reza said. Maybe they don't have that evidence. If they don't have that evidence, that part of their theory is weak. Defense lawyers are very well trained to focus on any missing aspect of the government's theory of the case and get the jurors to pay attention to it, he added. They bring in experts, and witnesses, and photographs, and documents, and physical evidence to prove every single link or sublink of their entire theory.
Evidence has to come into court through a human being.
A human being has to take the stand to authenticate a document, to authenticate a picture, to testify to a conversation he or she had with someone else, Reza also pointed out. Thus the defense can prepare to rebut the evidence or can investigate on its own to find information that contradicts a particular document, Reza said. But the defense usually is not entitled to learn the names of the government's witnesses until they appear on the stand in court, he said. Nevertheless, the defense can conduct their own investigations to try to learn the names of those witnesses ahead of time. During this trial, Judge Leonard Sand has required the prosecution to give the defense a list of the witnesses it intended to call during the upcoming week in order to prevent delays while defense lawyers prepared to cross-examine the witnesses.