The Fugitive (1993)

Thank you for explaining it. I've seen it several times and never realised how it went down.

And Tommy Lee Jones tells Kimble that they knew Nichols called Skyes from his car, but how? Wouldn't the more logical answer have been that the US Marshals thought that Kimble called Sykes from his car to tell the killer his wife was home alone? There is no way the US Marshalls would have known that the Kimble let Nichols borrow his call - that's the mistake in the movie! It actually should have made the Marshalls suspicious of Kimble, not exonerate him.

How did Sam figure out that Nichols borrowed the vehicle and made the call to Sykes and gave him keys, etc? I know in the laundry he reveals that he knew this but when/how did he figure it out?

The prosecution is not required to inform the defense of every person the police interview or question. They are only required to give the defense whatever evidence they have against the accused. Simply questioning someone in a perceived dead only counts as evidence against the accused if the prosecutor mentions it in court. If the prosecutor were to say "We interviewed a one-armed man named Sykes and he says he doesn't know you", then Kimble's defense would be required to be given access to Sykes. We can assume this never happened.

BaconIsMyBFF

The Chicago police DID question Sykes after the Kimble murder. Review the scene where Sykes returns to his apartment after Kimble has been there. Girard starts asking Sykes questions, at first Sykes says he doesn't know anything about Kimble but then "remembers" that he had been interviewed by the police right after the Kimble murder. However, Sykes says that he gave the police an alibi, with 15 people supposedly confirming that Sykes was on a business trip and not in Chicago. The movie then implies that Sykes had been a Chicago cop and lost his arm "in the line of duty." Remember that the Chicago police focused on Kimble pretty quickly. Their investigators may have interviewed Sykes, but they likely didn't even come close to considering him as a potential murderer. Even with Sykes likely matching Kimble's description of the one-armed man, the police likely saw Sykes as a former cop... A former cop who had an alibi confirmed by 15 people. As I understand it, prosecutors don't have to tell defense attorneys about everyone that the cops question. They only have to tell the defense about potential witnesses that might be called in connection to the criminal trial. In this scenario, Sykes wouldn't have been part of the criminal trial (Again, supposedly on a business trip confirmed by 15 people on the night of the murder) and thus Kimble and his lawyers would never have known about his existence.