# United States v. Yunis > [!note] Stub > This is a short entry that hasn't been fully written yet. 867 F.2d 617 (D.C. Cir., 1989) — the decision that set the discovery standard still used under § 4 of the [[Classified Information Procedures Act]]. The D.C. Circuit held that a defendant is not entitled to classified material merely because it is relevant. It must be **relevant and helpful to the defence** — a formula the court took from *Roviaro v. United States*, 353 U.S. 53 (1957), a Supreme Court case about when the government must disclose the identity of a confidential informant. The consequence is the asymmetry mapped in [[How Classified Evidence Reaches a Criminal Trial]]: because the government may make its § 4 showing in a written statement "to be inspected by the court alone," the judge decides what would be helpful to a defence while hearing about that defence only from the prosecution. Defence counsel may file a sealed statement of the theory, but they are arguing about documents they have not read. Fawaz Yunis, a Lebanese national, was prosecuted over the 1985 hijacking of a Royal Jordanian airliner; the case is also cited on the extraterritorial reach of United States hijacking and hostage-taking statutes. ## See also - [[Classified Information Procedures Act]] · [[How Classified Evidence Reaches a Criminal Trial]] - [[United States v. Fernandez]] · [[Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure]] - [[United States Courts of Appeals]] · [[Judiciary Hub]]