Opinion ID: 4562033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The X-Ray Was Material

Text: The materiality inquiry asks if there is a “‘reasonable probability’ of a different result . . . . The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434 (emphasis added); see also 13 See, e.g. Banks, 540 U.S. at 691; Clark, 934 F.3d at 492. 14 See, e.g. United States v. Tavera, 719 F.3d 705, 710–11 (6th Cir. 2013). 19 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine Castleberry v. Brigano, 349 F.3d 286, 291 (6th Cir. 2003). “A ‘reasonable probability’ of a different result” is said to have been demonstrated “when the government’s evidentiary suppression ‘undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.’” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434 (quoting Bagley, 473 U.S. at 678). We are warned, moreover, not to conflate materiality with the sufficiency-of-the-evidence inquiry. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434–45; Bies v. Sheldon, 775 F.3d 386, 399 (6th Cir. 2014). In particular, “A defendant need not demonstrate that after discounting the inculpatory evidence in light of the undisclosed evidence, there would not have been enough left to convict.” Bies, 775 F.3d at 399 (quoting Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434–45). In assessing this part of the Brady analysis, it is important to note how equivocal much of the evidence at Phillips’s trial was. For most of the two days, including from many of the prosecution witnesses, the jury heard at length about Glodo’s anger and aggression that day. But Dr. Schott’s testimony, and her explanation of the photographs of the back of Glodo’s skull, appeared to show as a matter of uncontroverted fact that Glodo had been shot squarely from behind (and from a distance of over three feet away). These, combined with Phillips’s inconsistent explanations on the day of the shooting—characterizing the shooting on the 911 call and in a police interview as both an accident and self-defense—were, on our reading of the trial transcript, the key turning points. Here was the indisputable (or so it seemed) evidence: Phillips had raised a shotgun, aimed it squarely at the back of Glodo’s head when there was a distance of at least three feet between them, and pulled the trigger. No matter what had come before, that is not self-defense, and it is very hard to square with accident. As we have seen, the prosecution strongly emphasized this key point in both its opening and closing arguments. Viewed in this light, it is easy to see how different the trial could have been had Phillips had the X-ray and expert(s)—firearms and, perhaps, medical—of his own. Instead of an equivocal 20 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine case swayed by one piece of indisputable evidence, the jury would have seen an equivocal case plus a battle of the experts. Relying on the X-ray, Phillips could have produced an expert to testify that the physical evidence was consistent with his account of a glancing shot, fired in the course of a struggle. Phillips may also have called a medical examiner, so as to have covered some of the weaknesses that Dehus, alone, clearly created. His counsel could also have used the X-ray for impeachment purposes. Dr. Schott testified at the trial that, based on the pellets she recovered from inside Glodo’s head, “the direction [of the pellet’s track] was back to front.” Phillips’s counsel could have impeached this conclusion on the basis of the X-ray. Moreover, Dr. Schott testified at the evidentiary hearing that, during the autopsy and after her technician had taken the X-ray, she recovered only a sample (19, out of an unknown total) of the pellets in the head so that these could be submitted to the police lab for examination. As we have seen, she strongly disclaimed the ability to track the direction of the shot on the basis of the X-ray, saying that it had “no bearing on the direction of the injury.” Introducing the X-ray would have allowed the defense to cross-examine Dr. Schott as to why she was so confident that this representative recovery, conducted to obtain material for ballistic analysis, allowed her to reconstruct the path of the shot, while finding no use at all for the X-ray in this regard. Similarly, the X-ray could have been used to weaken Dr. Schott’s testimony regarding the photograph, showing the central location of the wound: the argument presumably would be that though the entry wound was in the middle of the back of the head, the X-ray showed that the shot had been at an angle, not straight-on. The Commonwealth also called a firearms expert at trial for the purpose of showing that the trigger and safety of the shotgun worked normally. Phillips outlines to us the line of questioning on cross-examination of this witness that the X-ray would have made possible: 21 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine Apprised of the x-ray of Glodo’s skull, counsel could have elicited compelling testimony from Deskins that Glodo had been struck at a significant angle. Counsel could have asked Deskins to count the number of pellets in the x-ray, and compare that number to the number in the shell. Counsel could have asked Deskins about the pattern of pellets in the x-ray, and compare that to the normal pattern of distribution of shotgun pellets. Finally, counsel could have asked the ultimate question—whether the x-ray indicated a direct shot or an angled shot. Brief of Appellant at 34. Moreover, as Phillips now points out, the availability of these lines of cross-examination liberates the value of the X-ray (to some degree) from the credibility of Dehus: with the X-ray alone, such lines of cross-examination would have been possible. After all, it is our confidence in the trial, not our confidence in Dehus’s testimony, that is the question before us today. There is also the role this evidence might have played in mitigation. Brady evidence need only be material to either guilt or punishment. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 280. Phillips was charged with intentional murder, wanton murder, second-degree manslaughter, and reckless homicide. (See supra, p. 9 & nn.6–9.) The two lesser-included charges, below that of which Phillips was convicted, have self-defense elements.15 So if the jurors believed that the X-ray indicated the shot was at an angle, and agreed that such a fact indicated that there had been a struggle, then even if they were not convinced that this evidence was wholly exculpatory, they may well have decided that it showed imperfect self-defense and so “mitigated” down to a lesser charge. This would be “mitigation” in only the colloquial sense: really, the jury would be finding him innocent of one charge (wanton murder) and guilty of another, lesser charge. 15 These were the reckless-homicide and second-degree-manslaughter charges, respectively. See nn.8 & 9 supra. Each is a type of imperfect self-defense. In each, the defendant had to a) be entitled to act in self-defense; but b) be mistaken in his belief that it was necessary to use force or to use the degree of force employed. In the case of second-degree manslaughter, the jurors would also have to find he was “aware and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that he was mistaken in that belief” and that his disregard was grossly unreasonable. In the case of reckless homicide, that “he failed to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that he was mistaken in that belief” and that his disregard was grossly unreasonable. 22 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine But it is quite conceivable, alternatively, that they might have mitigated in the technically accurate sense. As Phillips argues: Evidence tending to prove that Phillips did not shoot Glodo directly in the back of the head, but rather at a significant angle, would have mitigated Phillips’s conduct and likely convinced jurors to impose a more lenient sentence at or near the twentyyear mandatory minimum sentence for the crime of wanton murder. This argument also undermines confidence in the sentencing decision. When the jury convicted Phillips of wanton murder, they likely found that the discharge was indeed accidental, but that raising a loaded gun and pointing it squarely at the back of a man’s head was wanton behavior. For that reason, evidence indicating that the gun was not leveled at Glodo might have gone a long way to mitigate the penalty. A gun held in his general direction, and a nervous slip of the finger, would be very different than taking dead-aim at the back of Glodo’s head. Thus, a jury that was provided with the X-ray might well have sentenced Phillips to fewer than the thirty years chosen by the jury. We have not, we must note, been able to find a case in which Strickler’s instruction that Brady is material to punishment as well as guilt, 527 U.S. at 280, has been applied outside the capital context. Were we ruling solely on this basis, that might give us more pause. However, as pointed out above, this is not the sole basis for our ruling; moreover, the Supreme Court is clear on this rule, even if it has not been broadly applied. The state argues that notwithstanding the X-ray, the evidence showed that Phillips returned to Capps’s house, where Glodo was to be found about four nights a week, with a loaded gun in his car; that he got out of his car in the parking lot and that shortly before the fatal shots were fired, he was using a loaded gun to fend off Glodo, and that the gun must have been at least relatively level since holes, arguably from some of the shot, were found in Glodo’s windshield. Cf. Phillips, 2012 WL 5457645, at . This, the argument then goes, was enough for the jury to find him guilty 23 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine of wanton murder, defined as “wantonly engaging in conduct which created a grave risk of danger to another and [shooting him] . . . under circumstances manifesting in extreme indifference to human life,” regardless of the X-ray. The district court found this argument persuasive, concluding that: “Even assuming . . . that Dehus’s opinion is correct and that Glodo was shot from behind at an angle and at a distance, that does not undermine confidence in the jury’s finding that Phillips committed wanton murder.” Phillips, 2018 WL 4976801, at . The problem, however, is that this is precisely the form a sufficiency-of-the-evidence analysis takes, and the Supreme Court has told us explicitly that the Brady inquiry is not to be equated to such a test. The district court framed the question as whether it could reconcile the new evidence with jury’s verdict, rather than whether, in light of the new evidence, it still had confidence in “the outcome of the trial.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434. Compare the statement of the district court that “[e]vidence that Phillips shot Glodo from behind at a distance is not inconsistent with the jury’s verdict,” Phillips, 2018 WL 4976801, at  (emphasis added), with that of the Supreme Court that “[a] defendant need not demonstrate that after discounting the inculpatory evidence in light of the undisclosed evidence, there would not have been enough left to convict.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434–45. It was error for the district court to rule on this basis. The dissent ably presents the case for how a good prosecutor could still have obtained a conviction for wanton murder and a 30-year sentence. The proper legal question, however, is whether the X-ray is “material” in the sense that it undermines our confidence in the course of the trial, not that it requires a conclusion that the outcome would necessarily have been different, or even that it is 50.1% likely that there would have been a different outcome. If there is to be a battle of the documents from the record, the reader is invited to consider whether, as a defense attorney, you would rather go to the jury with only the dissent’s photo (Dissent Appendix A), and 24 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine accompanying testimony; or with the jury also having access to the X-ray (Appendix A to this opinion), and the best accompanying testimony, cross-examination, and argument that could be based on the X-ray (“Where are all the pellets?”). The answer would seem obvious. And as a prosecutor, would you feel that you still could obtain the same conviction and sentence, but you would prefer that the defense not have the X-ray? Again, the answer is clear. The jury’s verdict required it to find that Phillips was not privileged to act in self-protection, which is easier to find when there is a full-on shot to the back of the head. It is easier to find reasonable doubt on that point if Phillips’s theory of a struggle and pushing Glodo away is buttressed by evidence that the shot was at a slanting angle. You may consider it a judgment call as to how much better it would be for the defense attorney, and how much harder for the prosecutor, but there is no gainsaying the direction of effect. It is our task to make the call of how much it takes to “undermine confidence.” Under the facts and law, as shown above, our confidence is not destroyed but it is undermined. As a final word, we also find convincing our recent case Carusone v. Warden, N. Cent. Corr. Inst., 966 F.3d 474 (6th Cir. 2020). Carusone had been in a fight over money with another man, whom he admittedly stabbed at least once in the arm and once in the chest; the other man died. Id. at 476. The state tried and convicted Carusone “exclusively on the theory—as the prosecution repeatedly emphasized in its closing argument at trial—that Carusone ‘plunged [a] knife into the victim’s heart.’” Id. at 475. Later, “Carusone discovered that the State had withheld five pages of the hospital’s records (including the ER doctor’s report and a chest x-ray) . . . .” Id. at 476–77 (emphasis added). This Brady evidence showed that the hole in the side of the victim’s heart was consistent with a needle used at the hospital to drain blood from around his heart (“pericardiocentesis”). Ibid. The victim had actually died of a heart attack induced by drugs, stress, 25 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine and the fight with the Carusone. Id. at 477. In state post-conviction relief proceedings, Carusone produced somewhat better expert testimony than we have in this case, and the state court acknowledged that he had “plainly discredit[ed]” the theory that the state had relied upon at trial. Id. at 475 (brackets in original); see id. at 477. But the state appeals court applied Brady as though it were a sufficiency-of-the-evidence test: It upheld the conviction on an alternate theory that the struggle with Carusone had led, in part, to the fatal heart attack. Id. at 478–79. We granted Carusone a writ of habeas corpus, noting that “the test for materiality under Brady ‘is not a sufficiency of evidence test’” but rather that “the suppressed evidence ‘undermine[s] confidence in the verdict.’” Id. at 479 (quoting Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 435) (brackets in original). The parallels to our case are plain. Kentucky relied “exclusively on the theory”—which “the prosecution repeatedly emphasized in its closing argument at trial”—that Phillips had shot Glodo “directly from his back into his head.” Carusone, 966 F.3d at 474. Like Carusone, Phillips later discovered an X-ray that called this theory into serious question. And the Ohio courts in Carusone’s case erroneously treated the Brady inquiry as a sufficiency-of-the-evidence inquiry, just as the district court did here. But that is not the correct inquiry. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434. If the prosecution suppressed evidence, inadvertently or otherwise, that calls into serious question the theory of death in a murder trial—as it did here and in Carusone—we cannot simply hand-wave that away. We hold that there has been a material Brady violation. We are reluctant to undo a jury verdict finding someone guilty of such a serious crime. That is particularly true in a situation like this one, where so much of the case turned on the jury’s judgment as to what was in someone’s mind and, to a lesser extent, on an understanding of local conditions and culture. But we are convinced that, had Phillips had the X-ray to rely on, the course 26 Case No. 18-6184, Phillips v. Valentine of his trial would likely have been quite different. We are not, in short, “confiden[t] in the outcome of the [original] trial.” Ibid.