Appeals Court Rules DoJ Doesn’t have to Disclose ‘Litigation Strategy Playbook’

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t have to disclose the contents of its “Federal Criminal Discovery Blue Book.” 

The nine-chapter Blue Book is a “litigation strategy playbook intended to help federal prosecutors win criminal cases,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which sued to get hold of the Blue Book, argued that the strategies and advice it presumed were offered in the manual are too general to merit such confidentiality.” 

The Blue Book was drafted by the DoJ “after the bungled corruption prosecution of the late Sen. Ted Stevens.”