Opinion ID: 1515746
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Alleged Brady v. Maryland Violations

Text: After disposing of defendant's belated arguments concerning alleged Rule 16 violations, the remainder of defendant's new-trial motion amounts to an assertion that Mrs. Cronan's attorneys violated their constitutional duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to him as required by Brady and its progeny [15] because they failed to provide him with the complete medical records documenting Mrs. Cronan's mental-health problems and treatments. Although they were privately employed, the attorneys who prosecuted this case represented the state. Thus, they were required to meet all the pretrial disclosure and discovery responsibilities expected of any public prosecutor. In Brady, the United States Supreme Court held that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to the accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1196-97, 10 L.Ed.2d at 218. Later cases have explained that a prosecutor's duty to disclose such evidence applies even in the absence of a request by the accused. Moreover, the prosecution's duty to disclose such evidence can encompass impeachment material as well as purely exculpatory evidence. See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 676, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3380, 87 L.Ed.2d 481, 490 (1985); United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 107, 96 S. Ct. 2392, 2399, 49 L.Ed.2d 342, 351-52 (1976). To meet the standard of materiality and establish a Brady violation, a defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. at 3383, 87 L.Ed.2d at 494. Our previous decisions, however, have adopted a deliberate suppression standard that provides even greater protection to criminal defendants than the one articulated in Bagley. See State v. Wyche, 518 A.2d 907, 910 (R.I.1986); In re Ouimette, 115 R.I. 169, 177, 342 A.2d 250, 254 (1975). In Wyche, we explained: When the failure to disclose is deliberate, this court will not concern itself with the degree of harm caused to the defendant by the prosecution's misconduct; we shall simply grant the defendant a new trial. Id. The prosecution acts deliberately when it makes `a considered decision to suppress    for the purpose of obstructing' or where it fails `to disclose evidence whose high value to the defense could not have escaped    [its] attention. ' Wyche, 518 A.2d at 910 (quoting United States v. Keogh, 391 F.2d 138, 146-47 (2d Cir. 1968)). (Emphasis added.) We also explained in that case, however, that the Brady doctrine has its limits and does not extend an open invitation to criminal defendants to comb prosecution files for any or all information that might be remotely useful. Wyche, 518 A.2d at 908 (citing Agurs, 427 U.S. at 111, 96 S.Ct. at 2401, 49 L. Ed.2d at 354). Thus, the nondisclosed information still must be material in the sense that its high value to the defense could not have escaped    [the prosecution's] attention. Id., at 910. Applying the Wyche doctrine to the circumstances in this case, we hold that defendant failed to establish a Brady violation here. First, the parties' concurrent Family Court divorce action involved the same parties as the case at bar. That action spawned substantial discovery and resulted in the production of many if not all of the very medical and psychological records concerning Mrs. Cronan that defendant claimed were not provided to him in the criminal case. The defendant, through his Family Court trial counsel, had access to all the sealed medical and psychological records that were produced in the Family Court action. [16] Indeed, defendant introduced several of them into evidence in the divorce case, and his gleanings from those records now form the basis of his Brady urgings here. [17] We decline to read the prosecution's Brady obligation so formalistically as to require the prosecution to deliver to adefendant all the same documentary information and material that both sides knew was already produced or otherwise available to them as a result of the concurrent divorce proceedings in the Family Court. Given these circumstances, no record support exists for the suggestion that the prosecution made `a considered decision to suppress    for the purpose of obstructing' any evidence that was favorable to defendant's case. Wyche, 518 A.2d at 910. See United States v. Earnest, 129 F.3d 906, 910 (7th Cir. 1997) ([E]vidence is not regarded as `suppressed' by the government when the defendant has access to the evidence before trial by the exercise of reasonable diligence.). Furthermore, through the divorce proceeding and other means, including defendant's knowledge of his wife's mental-health problems and her treatments for them, the defense knew about the alleged high value of the medical and other evidence documenting this situation well before the criminal trial started. Nevertheless, the defense either failed or consciously decided not to use or to obtain access to all that evidence or to subpoena certain medical records or other alleged impeachment material that it now concludes would have undercut the prosecution's case. Cf. United States v. Zichettello, 208 F.3d 72, 103 (2d Cir. 2000) (Even if evidence is material and exculpatory, it `is not suppressed' by the government within the meaning of Brady `if the defendant either knew, or should have known, of the essential facts permitting him to take advantage of any exculpatory evidence.') (quoting United States v. Zackson, 6 F.3d 911, 918 (2d Cir. 1993); and United States v. LeRoy, 687 F.2d 610, 618 (2d Cir. 1982)). The trial justice explained in his decision that, despite Mrs. Cronan's history of mental illness, her many moments of lucidity and proper conduct provided ample support for finding defendant guilty of assault. To counter or impeach these moments of lucidity, the defense failed to establish that it did not already know or have access to as much information concerning Mrs. Cronan's mental-healthhistory as did the prosecution. Given these circumstances, Brady did not require the prosecution to produce this same medical evidence concerning Mrs. Cronan's mental-health diagnoses and treatments that already had been made available, or otherwise was known to defendant through the continuing divorce proceedings with his wife. Finally, to the extent that defendant's motion for a new trial was premised upon newly discovered evidence, instead of unproduced Brady material, defendant failed to show reasonable diligence in attempting to discover the medical and other evidence that he now asserts was newly discovered for use at the original trial. See State v. Bassett, 447 A.2d 371, 375 (R.I.1982). Furthermore, the additional medical evidence concerning Mrs. Cronan's psychological condition appears to have been merely cumulative to the defense that was presented  one that concentrated upon and highlighted this evidence and endeavored to exploit all its adverse ramifications for Mrs. Cronan's credibility. Therefore, we remain unconvinced that it otherwise would have affected the outcome of the trial. See, e.g., Mastracchio v. Moran, 698 A.2d 706, 714 (R.I.1997); State v. Mastracchio, 605 A.2d 489, 494 (R.I.1992).