This sounds like the plot of something I'd read

But it's not, it's from a court case which was too boring for me to get past the summary. The plot's good though.

In trial of defendant charged with arson against targets she allegedly believed were responsible for genetic engineering, district court’s evidentiary ruling barring defendant from arguing that she was the victim of government misconduct or a conspiracy to conceal a witness’s misidentification during an initial interview with the government did not violate defendant’s due process rights where she was allowed to question the testifying agents about the quality of their work and about the discrepancy between their notes and a report of the interview. District court abused its discretion in admitting a folder of anarchist literature because the court's failure to read every page of the articles before ruling on their admissibility meant that it could not have properly weighed their impact under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. Court’s decision denying defendant’s request to show the jury a documentary film she produced showing her peaceful means of protest was an abuse of discretion in light of admission of the anarchist literature. District court erred in denying on hearsay grounds defendant’s request to admit evidence of her admonition to her cousin to "tell the truth" to the FBI in its investigation because that statement was an imperative, not an assertion. District court’s decisions admitting anarchist literature and declining to admit documentary film were sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal.