Song's New-Trial Motion Invokes Brady and Giglio Over Undocumented Bullet Strikes; Court Denied It From the Bench at Sentencing

Benjamin Song’s lawyers filed a motion for new trial in the Prairieland case (ECF 381, filed 03/27/26). The motion says “The defense first learned during trial that crime-scene investigators did not take photographs of the alleged bullet strikes into the ground or concrete” the government relied on for direction of fire and intent. It frames the issue alternatively: a failure to preserve apparently exculpatory evidence, and, if the government knew before trial, “properly analyzed under Brady and Giglio.”

The government answered (filed 04/10/26) under the heading “Song fails to establish a Brady violation justifying a new trial.” It argued the evidence was not suppressed: “Song could have learned of the alleged absence of in-depth photos of ground strikes by examining the United States’ production of crime scene photos or by asking whether such photos existed.”

The court denied Song’s request to file a reply (filed 04/28/26): “the Motion should be and hereby is DENIED.” The motion itself was denied from the bench at sentencing; the minute entry for the sentencing hearing reads “378 Motion for Acquittal and 381 Motion to Set Aside Judgment denied on the record.” No written order on the merits appears on the RECAP docket.

The motion’s own words put the failure on the investigation: “the issue is a due-process failure to preserve apparently exculpatory evidence.” It is a disclosure and preservation claim aimed at the prosecution side, not an exclusion ruling by the judge. The separate pretrial bar on a self-defense theory is a different mechanism, covered in 2026-09-27–prairieland-defense-withheld-bullet-ricochet-evidence-song.