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The doctrine of equitable principles of clean hands and protecting individual rights has been upheld in favor of dismissing an indictment and even reversing a conviction where outrageous government conduct has been involved. This is an extreme sanction for a showing of significant prejudice and tainting of evidence.
There are only a handful of cases that have identified outrageous government conduct as a basis for dismissing a federal indictment.Shady investigation tactics are insufficient in and of themselves to meet this standard to warrant such sanctions.
Outrageous conduct includes:violation of no-contact rule with a defendant under indictment and represented by counsel; violation of attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping; purposefully drafting a false criminal complaint, and suborning perjury.
Typically motions to dismiss are based on the merits and for insufficiency of evidence, rather than atypical malicious government conduct. But that does not necessarily mean that outrageous government conduct does not occur. If there is a reasonable basis to make a motion of outrageous government conduct, experienced defense counsel and private investigators and experts can work together to support those allegations.
