Opinion ID: 1594
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Prejudice Resulting from the Brady Violation and Prosecutorial Misconduct

Text: Accepting that the prosecutors' comments in summation were improper and that they failed to disclose the July 10 letter to Jason and Hein, we next consider whether the prosecution's conduct prejudiced petitioners. Because we are satisfied that the trial was fundamentally fair and there was no reasonable probability that the letter would have affected the verdict, we reject both petitioners' Brady and prosecutorial misconduct claims. It is unclear whether we should employ Brady's prejudice standard to evaluate the cumulative effect of the prosecutorial misconduct and the non-disclosure. Although this circuit has never explicitly used the reasonable probability formulation found in the Brady line of cases to analyze alleged prosecutorial misconduct, a number of circuits have concluded that prosecutorial misconduct lends itself to that standard. E.g., Styron v. Johnson, 262 F.3d 438, 454 (5th Cir.2001); Jones v. Gibson, 206 F.3d 946, 959 (10th Cir.2000); Kennedy v. Dugger, 933 F.2d 905, 914 (11th Cir.1991); cf. United States ex rel. Shaw v. De Robertis, 755 F.2d 1279, 1281 n. 1 (7th Cir.1985) (To carry this burden,[a petitioner] must show that it is at least likely that the misconduct complained of affected the outcome of his trial  i.e., caused the jury to reach a verdict of guilty when otherwise it might have reached a verdict of not guilty.); see generally Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 298-301 & n. 3, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999) (Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (tracing the evolution of the reasonable probability formulation and noting the applicability of that and synonymous phrases in a number of contexts). The standard announced in Darden and Donnelly appears to be similar to the Brady standard. Like the Brady standard, the touchstone for the Darden/Donnelly standard is the fairness of the trial. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the [undisclosed] evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence.); Darden, 477 U.S. at 181-82 & n. 13, 106 S.Ct. 2464 (noting that prosecutorial comments, although deserving of condemnation, did not violate due process because they did not affect the fairness of the trial). The Darden factors  i.e., the weight of the evidence, the prominence of the comment in the context of the entire trial, whether the prosecution misstated the evidence, whether the judge instructed the jury to disregard the comment, whether the comment was invited by defense counsel in its summation and whether defense counsel had an adequate opportunity to rebut the comment  require courts to place improper argument in the context of the entire trial to evaluate whether its damaging effect was mitigated or aggravated. In essence, what Darden requires reviewing courts to consider appears to be equivalent to evaluating whether there was a reasonable probability of a different result. Cf. Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 1383, 1401 (11th Cir.1985) ( en banc ), vacated on other grounds, 478 U.S. 1016, 106 S.Ct. 3325, 92 L.Ed.2d 732 (1986), reinstated, 809 F.2d 700 (11th Cir.1987) ( per curiam ) (noting that fundamental fairness, the same standard adopted in Donnelly, is the governing principle in reviewing errors of counsel [under the reasonable probability standard employed by Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984)]). Although it seems doubtful that Darden would impose a lower burden on petitioners than Brady does, we do not need to resolve the question here. [12] Instead we use the framework announced in Jackson v. Brown, 513 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir. 2008), which was created for analyzing combined Brady and Napue challenges. In Jackson, we reasoned that, although instances of non-disclosure and false evidence must be evaluated collectively, the difference between the materiality standards used for weighing their potential prejudice compelled us to consider the materiality of the false evidence alone before combining it with non-disclosure. Jackson, 513 F.3d at 1076. Thus, under Jackson's framework, instances of false evidence are analyzed first under Napue's materiality standard, and, if those errors are not material standing alone, false evidence is then considered together with non-disclosure, and both are analyzed under Brady's more demanding standard. Id. Assuming, arguendo, that Darden's standard is less demanding than Brady's, we first analyze the prosecutorial misconduct challenges to assess whether they alone so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. If the prosecution's comments alone do not meet this standard, we analyze them together with the non-disclosure of the July 10 letter to determine whether there is a reasonable probability that without those violations the result of the proceeding would have been different. In doing so, we concentrate on the touchstone of Brady's materiality standard: that, even with the trial errors, petitioners received a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555. Here, two key factors illustrate that the prosecution's summation, when viewed in the context of the entire record, did not render the trial fundamentally unfair. See Darden, 477 U.S. at 182-83, 106 S.Ct. 2464. First, in context, much of the potential prejudice of the prosecution's comments was mitigated. The trial court sustained a number of objections and gave timely cautionary instructions to the jury, including general instructions about the hortative nature of summation. Moreover, the comments were made in the course of several days of summation after a two-month trial. Regarding Latin's statement about McLoren's criminal liability, which appeared in one paragraph of a summation that took up eighty-four pages of the transcript, the comment was ambiguous and, to the extent it was given its more damaging interpretation, it is likely that the comment did not have much impact. McLoren had told the jury that he was not the State's priority, from which it could conclude that he faced little risk of criminal charges. Moreover, Latin's statement was ambiguous, and we do not presume that the jury ascribed to it its most damaging meaning. See Donnelly, 416 U.S. at 647, 94 S.Ct. 1868 ([A] court should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning or that a jury, sitting through lengthy exhortation, will draw that meaning from the plethora of less damaging interpretations.). Even if the jury gave the statement its more damaging interpretation, the statement would have bolstered McLoren's testimony only a negligible amount, which would not have helped the prosecution's case much anyway since McLoren had little incentive to lie. [13] Finally, the comment did not pervade the proceedings and was not emphasized. Second, in light of the other evidence received over the course of two months of trial, the prosecution offered the only believable theory for why the fight began in the first place, i.e., that it had been instigated by Micah's attempted robbery of McLoren's drugs. Petitioners never offered a plausible alternative to this theory. Additionally, the prosecution's version of events was corroborated by petitioners' theft of Moulder's wallet to show why the group also intended to rob McLoren. In contrast, petitioners' argument here is what defense counsel argued in summation at trial, to wit, that petitioners had entered McLoren's grandparents' property to buy marijuana and that a fight had spontaneously erupted with no words exchanged between petitioners and McLoren. Although the prosecution's case relied on McLoren's testimony, petitioners' inability to advance any plausible theory for why the fight began cannot be disregarded. Accordingly, petitioners do not demonstrate that the prosecutors' improper comments affected the fairness of petitioners' trial. See Darden, 477 U.S. at 181 n. 13, 106 S.Ct. 2464. We next consider whether the combined instances of non-disclosure and improper argument deprived petitioners of a fair trial, meaning a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555. As explained above, the fact that the prosecution advanced the only plausible theory for the instigation of the fight undercuts any claim of prejudice. The non-disclosure of the July 10 letter does not affect this conclusion. The use immunity letter was not the potent impeachment evidence petitioners make it out to be. McLoren received no benefit  such as dropped charges or transactional immunity  from the prosecution for testifying. The grant of use immunity left McLoren in the same position he was in before speaking with Semow. Petitioners attempt to assign more importance to the letter by suggesting that there was an unspoken (or unwritten) understanding that McLoren would not be prosecuted, but there is no support in the record for this assertion. [14] Another reason use immunity had only very limited impeachment value relates specifically to the substance of McLoren's testimony. As we stressed in our discussion of petitioners' false evidence claim, McLoren never denied receiving use immunity. Importantly, he was never asked whether his statements to the prosecution and at trial could have been used against him. Moreover, because McLoren was given only use immunity, his statements that he could still have been prosecuted were also not false. Even if defense counsel had confronted McLoren with the prosecution's grant of use immunity, none of McLoren's testimony would have been exposed as untruthful. Accordingly, the combined effect of the prosecution's arguments and the non-disclosure of the July 10 letter did not deprive petitioners of a fair trial.