"While it is not unusual for judges to ask parties to submit proposed findings before they make a ruling, it should be unusual for them to simply adopt one party’s document without reading it, without editing it, without considering it. The fact-finding process is meant to be adversarial, even more so in high-stakes capital cases. When courts just adopt the State’s documents verbatim, due process is rendered meaningless; judges have ceded whatever authority they have, handing it over to the State."

Prosecutorial Accountability Project

June 19, 2018