Opinion ID: 68091
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence—Causation

Text: Nor does the diffuse evidence of Brady misunderstanding among several assistant district attorneys satisfy the causation requirements relating to the violation at issue here. The specific question we ask is whether Connick’s failure to provide in-house training was the moving force behind the failure to turn over the lab report. Stated differently, the question is whether, under the teachings of City of Canton and Bryan County, unfamiliarity with Brady obligations with respect to this lab report was the actual cause—the moving force—of this constitutional violation. This standard of causation must be established by uncertainty over whether any particular piece of the file was Brady material. In fact, many District Attorney’s Offices have blanket disclosure policies specifically so that prosecutors need not make difficult Brady decisions. Judge Prado then goes on to state that this evidence is contradicted by evidence of a policy not to disclose certain police reports and witness statements. But there is nothing contradictory in having a policy to disclose one type of report alongside a policy not to disclose an entirely different type of report. Judge Prado is contradicting apples with oranges; there is simply no evidence in the record which refutes the testimony of these witnesses that there was a policy of disclosing lab reports and scientific evidence. 26 No. 07-30443 substantial evidence. If Thompson did not submit substantial evidence that the failure to produce the lab report was caused by confusion over Brady, the jury could not have reasonably concluded that the lack of training was the direct cause of Thompson’s injury, and judgment as a matter of law is required. The record leaves many unanswered questions about the actual cause of this constitutional violation. It is, however, clear that four assistant district attorneys were involved in the failure to produce the lab report. They were Bruce Whittaker, James Williams, Gerry Deegan, and Eric Dubelier. The failure to produce the lab report lies with one or more of these assistant district attorneys. We turn now to examine what the record reflects as to these assistants. Whittaker, as the armed robbery “screener,” was responsible for initially reviewing the police file on Thompson, deciding whether to prosecute, and assigning the case to the correct division. He “screened” Thompson’s file on February 25, 1985—approximately five weeks after Thompson had been arrested. The police report indicated that evidence had been collected from the crime scene that possibly contained the perpetrator’s blood. Accordingly, Whittaker wrote “May wish to do blood tests,” on the screening action form. After Whittaker screened the case, Dubelier, an experienced assistant district attorney, was assigned as lead prosecutor, and Deegan was assigned as the junior assistant on the case. Dubelier had no independent recollection of the armed robbery prosecution that had occurred twenty years earlier, but the record indicates that he and Deegan handled most of the pre-trial work. Williams did not become involved with the case until March 11 when Dubelier asked him to handle a pre-trial evidentiary hearing. During this hearing, Williams, based on his review of the screening action form, announced to the court and Thompson’s counsel that the prosecution intended to test Thompson’s blood. However, no such test was ever ordered by the prosecution. Later, 27 No. 07-30443 sometime before the April 11 trial,62 Dubelier asked Williams to take over trial responsibility for the case. There is no testimony in the record from Deegan, who died several years before Thompson instituted this action. The record does contain, however, an affidavit and testimony from his colleague and close friend Michael Riehlmann. According to Riehlmann, shortly after Deegan was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Deegan confessed “that he had intentionally suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery trial of John Thompson that in some way exculpated the defendant.”63 Deegan’s confession is, in part, supported by the evidence card, a card on file that identified the physical evidence in the case. The card indicates that the morning the trial was set to begin, Deegan checked out the blood evidence and never returned it. As for the lab report itself, the record is not clear who ordered the testing. The report was dated April 9, just two days before trial, and addressed to Whittaker. Whittaker recalled seeing the report and placing it on Williams’s desk. Because he was only the screening prosecutor, Whittaker was not responsible for turning it over to the defense. Williams and Dubelier both testified that they never saw the report. Riehlmann’s account of Deegan’s confession is not clear whether Deegan was referring to the lab report, to the actual blood evidence, or to both. The statements of these four assistant district attorneys—the only prosecutors who had any involvement in the armed robbery case—provide very little information regarding the lab report. What is clear from the record is this: first, Whittaker received the report a few days before trial; second, no prosecutor 62 Williams testified that Dubelier asked him to take over the case just a few days before trial. Dubelier, however, could not recall when he asked Williams to take over, and he testified that it would have been very odd to make such a change only a few days before trial. 63 At trial, Riehlmann’s testimony was more equivocal: he stated that Deegan told him “that he had failed to turn over stuff that might have been exculpatory.” 28 No. 07-30443 ever turned it over to Thompson’s counsel; and third, the report did not appear again until it was discovered fourteen years later. Thompson based his case upon a single causation theory: that one or more of the assistant district attorneys involved in Thompson’s prosecution decided not to turn over the report because they did not know that they were legally obligated to produce it and that training sessions on Brady would have avoided this incident.64 To prove his theory, Thompson must present substantial evidence from which a jury reasonably could conclude that the failure of Connick to provide training sessions on Brady was the actual cause of and the moving force behind the failure to produce the report. The precedents require substantial evidence of direct causation. This standard demands more than evidence of confusion over Brady’s “gray areas” in the District Attorney’s Office. Finally, Thompson must establish that this lack of understanding would have been remedied by an in-house training program. Thompson’s brief fails to point out any such evidence to sustain municipal liability. As best we understand his brief, the only arguments he makes regarding causation are these: (1) the record supports the conclusion that these four prosecutors knew about the blood evidence and yet failed to disclose it;65 and (2) the jury was free to reject Connick’s theory of a single rogue prosecutor. Even if we accept both of these assertions as correct, they still fail completely to establish that the Brady violation was caused by unfamiliarity with Brady. And 64 Yet, we must observe that the record does not reflect whether a decision to produce, or not produce, the report was ever made, or whether the report was misplaced or overlooked, or whether one or more of the four prosecutors assumed it would be handled by someone else. 65 For example, Thompson’s brief states, “It is also not surprising that at least four prosecutors—Dubelier, Williams, Whittaker, and Deegan—knew about the blood evidence yet each failed to disclose it.” And, “Dubelier, the special prosecutor in charge of both cases, knew but chose not to reveal there was blood evidence.” And, “Based upon that evidence, the jury was free to infer that both Whittaker and Williams received the crime lab report, but did not produce it.” 29 No. 07-30443 because Thompson bore the burden of proof, he had to do more than simply assert that the jury was free to reject Connick’s explanations for the violation. Thompson had to put forth substantial evidence supporting his own theory of causation: that the assistant district attorney (or attorneys) responsible for the constitutional violation did not understand Brady, that this lack of understanding caused the failure to produce the report, and that Brady training could have resolved this lack of understanding. We have reviewed the record for any such evidence. First, it contains evidence that Williams, when asked if Brady material includes documents that could be used to impeach a government witness, incorrectly replied “No.”66 Second, the 1987 policy manual from the District Attorney’s Office could be read to imply that Brady evidence need only be produced when the defense requests it and it fails to note that impeachment evidence is also included under Brady. Third, Solino and Connick, after the report was discovered, contended that the lab report was not subject to Brady as such because Thompson’s blood type was unknown and the report thus had no exonerative effect on Thompson’s guilt. Fourth, although Williams stated unequivocally that all technical or scientific reports, like the lab report, were required to be turned over to a defendant, he also testified that this obligation did not necessarily arise from Brady because the report was not necessarily exculpatory.67 66 See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972) (holding that Brady requires the production of evidence that could be used to impeach a government witness). 67 Thompson seeks to bolster the evidence of a link between the lack of formal Brady training and non-disclosure of the lab report with evidence of other allegedly illegal failures by the prosecutors to turn over evidence to his counsel in the murder case. This attempt fails for several reason. First, as has been noted, supra n.41, none of the other nondisclosures has been held to violate Brady—or any other legal rule. It is a non-sequitur to say that failure to train on Brady had anything to do with failure to disclose non-Brady evidence. Second, without proof of the illegality of the nondisclosures, Thompson cannot rely on them to prove systemic lack of training about Brady obligations. Third, the more general notion of a “culture of indifference” toward a district attorney’s disclosure obligations is a description 30 No. 07-30443 The record fails to establish, by substantial evidence, that the actual cause and moving force behind the constitutional violation of not producing the lab report was the failure of the District Attorney to have in-house training sessions on Brady. For example, an assistant district attorney’s confusion regarding whether Brady applied to impeachment evidence may show a need for enlightening this assistant but is irrelevant here because the lab report clearly was not impeachment evidence and would not have been turned over on that basis. The policy manual, although incomplete in its instructions on Brady evidence and post-dating Thompson’s trial by several years, does little to establish the necessary direct causal link, and the jury concluded in its verdict that the violation was not due to an established municipal policy. Thus, even assuming that Connick was deliberately indifferent to a need for training, Thompson failed as a matter of law to show that the lack of training was the actual cause of the constitutional violation.68 Therefore the judgment should be reversed and rendered for the defendant.