Opinion ID: 999579
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Single habeas proceeding

Text: Ward asserts that the district court erred because it fail[ed] to consider the collateral effect of all undisclosed evidence in one joint habeas corpus, and contends that all of his alleged Brady violations 10 should have been resolved in one proceeding because, under Kyles, the materiality element of Brady requires that suppressed evidence be considered collectively, rather than item by item. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 436. He particularly argues that in denying his claim that an exculpatory witness was withheld in violation of Brady, the state appellate court relied heavily on the blood evidence later found to be unreliable. We find that review of all the alleged errors in a single proceeding would not have yielded a different result as Ward contends. Moreover, as discussed in the previous section, Ward never raised the issue of the third blood type to the state courts, and thus it is his own error that resulted in part of the piecemeal review of which he now complains. As to the Brady claim raised on direct appeal, we disagree with Ward's assertions that the state court relied heavily on the blood evidence in disposing of this claim and that a different result would have inured had the Zain issues been discovered prior to that appeal. The facts regarding this Brady claim involve the State's failure to inform Ward of a witness who saw a man inside the Wendy's store shortly before the murder was believed to have taken place. The man the witness described did not match Ward's appearance. According to this witness, she rode past the Wendy's store at some time after 12:20 a.m.5 As the driver of the car stopped at a traffic light, the witness looked out the passenger window and saw a white male in his late twenties with dark hair sitting at a table in the dining room. Although the witness could not recall if the lights in the store were on, she testified that the man had a mustache, was wearing long pants, and was slightly overweight.6 The witness reported at least part of her observations to the police the following day, and was told that someone would be in touch with her. She was not contacted again until after the completion of the trial. _________________________________________________________________ 5 It was later determined that this witness did not clock out from her place of employment until 12:39 a.m. 6 Oddly, the driver of the car in which the witness was a passenger testified during the state hearings that the witness told her that she saw a black male in the restaurant, and that when Ward's picture was displayed in the media a few days after the murder, the witness stated that Ward, who is black, looked like the man she had seen in the restaurant. 11 At a hearing on Ward's motion for a new trial, the State explained that although this information was in their possession, they were unaware of it. A police officer testified that investigators believed that the individual seen by the witness, described only as a male with short brown hair, was Craig Sigler, the Wendy's employee who admitted and testified to being in the store with both Ward and Carter at 12:30 a.m., and stated that as he left, Ward was still in the parking lot. Accordingly, they did not follow up on the witness' call. Although there appeared to be some discrepancy between the time the witness would have seen the white male in the restaurant and the time Sigler testified that he left, the overall difference was only in the area of fifteen minutes. Following the new trial hearing, the state court concluded that there was no Brady violation because Ward could not demonstrate that the new evidence would have caused the jury to reach a different result. It therefore denied his motion for a new trial. While this language suggests a higher standard than the reasonable probability standard articulated in Bagley, this issue was relitigated on direct appeal, where the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals employed the appropriate standard and determined that there was no reasonable probability of a different result had this evidence been presented to the jury. Although this conclusion may have relied upon the later-questioned blood evidence, there is no indication, as Ward contends, of heavy reliance on that evidence. Moreover, even were the blood evidence claims and this potential Brady violation raised in the same proceeding, we conclude that the same result would obtain. As summarized above, the jury would then have learned that Ward, Carter, and Sigler were alone at the Wendy's store until approximately 12:30 a.m. on the morning of the murder, and that when Sigler left the lot, Ward was still standing in the parking lot leaning against his car. During the robbery, approximately $1350, including a substantial amount of change in Wells Fargo wrappers, was taken from the store, and later that day, Ward, previously in financial distress, bought a car stereo system in cash, and his girlfriend paid off a large and overdue power bill with blood-stained currency. Further, following his flight from HWRC authorities, a large amount of cash was also recovered from Ward's car, and a five dollar 12 bill, also stained with blood, was found in his wallet. In addition, a backpack belonging to Ward was found to contain a large amount of cash concealed within a figurine belonging to Ward's girlfriend. This backpack also contained the approximate amount in change believed to have been stolen from the Wendy's store, packaged in the same wrappers in which Wendy's change is packaged. Relevant to the appearance of blood on some of the aforementioned currency, the Wendy's store manager testified that blood was discovered both on and inside the store safe. Finally, Ward's paycheck, along with those of all other store employees, was found at the Wendy's store following the murder, and thus the aforementioned cash was not received as part of his salary. Given this evidence, we conclude that there is no reasonable probability that had the jury learned the additional fact that Sigler might have been in the restaurant for up to fifteen minutes longer than he indicated, a different verdict would have resulted even if the jury had not heard the serology testimony. Accordingly, Ward's claim regarding a single habeas proceeding was properly denied.