diff --git a/geth-utils/gethutil/mpt/witness/leaf.go b/geth-utils/gethutil/mpt/witness/leaf.go
index b34b6565231..308490d6c69 100644
--- a/geth-utils/gethutil/mpt/witness/leaf.go
+++ b/geth-utils/gethutil/mpt/witness/leaf.go
@@ -493,16 +493,7 @@ func prepareStorageLeafInfo(row []byte, valueIsZero, isPlaceholder bool) ([]byte
 		} else {
 			// [226,160,59,138,106,70,105,186,37,13,38[227,32,161,160,187,239,170,18,88,1,56,188,38,60,149,117,120,38,223,78,36,235,129,201,170,170,170,170,170,170,170,170,170,170,170,170]
 			keyLen = row[1] - 128
-			if keyLen+2 > valueLen {
-				// This happens for StorageDoesNotExist when the trie is empty. In this case, the key
-				// occupies 33 (33 = 161 - 128) bytes, as in the example below:
-				// [227 161 32 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
-				// Currently, the length for the RLP items is set valueLen = 34, changing this to 35 would
-				// require significant changes in the circuit.
-				copy(key, row[keyRlpLen:valueLen])
-			} else {
-				copy(key, row[keyRlpLen:keyLen+2])
-			}
+			copy(key, row[keyRlpLen:keyLen+2])
 			offset = byte(2)
 		}
 	}
diff --git a/geth-utils/src/mpt.rs b/geth-utils/src/mpt.rs
index 014d76d4d17..bca30af0e73 100644
--- a/geth-utils/src/mpt.rs
+++ b/geth-utils/src/mpt.rs
@@ -95,28 +95,12 @@ pub fn get_witness(block_no: u64, mods: &[TrieModification], node_url: &str) ->
 
     unsafe { go::FreeString(c_str.as_ptr()) };
 
+    // Note: previously this function returned a Vec of Nodes, but now returning a JSON string
+    // to avoid imporing zkEVM circuit here (that will create a circular dependency).
+    // TODO: consider defining Node types in another crate.
+
     json
 
-    // let mut nodes: Vec<Node> = serde_json::from_str(json).unwrap();
-    //
-    // Add the address and the key to the list of values in the Account and Storage nodes
-    // for node in nodes.iter_mut() {
-    // if node.account.is_some() {
-    // let account = node.account.clone().unwrap();
-    // node.values
-    // .push([vec![148], account.address.to_vec()].concat().into());
-    // node.values
-    // .push([vec![160], account.key.to_vec()].concat().into());
-    // }
-    // if node.storage.is_some() {
-    // let storage = node.storage.clone().unwrap();
-    // node.values
-    // .push([vec![160], storage.address.to_vec()].concat().into());
-    // node.values
-    // .push([vec![160], storage.key.to_vec()].concat().into());
-    // }
-    // }
-    // nodes
 }
 
 #[cfg(test)]