Opinion ID: 1668296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Brady v. Maryland Claim

Text: In Rogers v. State, 782 So.2d 373 (Fla. 2001), this Court went to some lengths to explain the State's constitutional obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brady. We believe that explanation is equally pertinent to our analysis here: In Brady, the United States Supreme Court held that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused ... violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194. In Kyles, the Court wrote: [ United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985),] held that regardless of request [by defendant], favorable evidence is material, and constitutional error results from its suppression by the government, if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. 473 U.S., at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375 (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 685, 105 S.Ct. 3375 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Kyles, 514 U.S. at 433-34, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (emphasis added). Recently, in Young v. State, 739 So.2d 553 (Fla.1999), we recognized this emphasis placed on the materiality prong and stated: [Although] defendants have the right to pretrial discovery under our Rules of Criminal Procedure, and thus there is an obligation upon defendant to exercise due diligence pretrial to obtain information ... the focus in postconviction BradyBagley analysis is ultimately the nature and weight of undisclosed information. The ultimate test in backward-looking postconviction analysis is whether information which the State possessed and did not reveal to the defendant and which information was thereby unavailable to the defendant for trial, is of such a nature and weight that confidence in the outcome of the trial is undermined to the extent that there is a reasonable probability that had the information been disclosed to the defendant, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Young, 739 So.2d at 559. One week after our decision in Young, the United States Supreme Court decided Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999), confirming its analysis in Kyles. In Strickler, the court stated again the rules which must be applied to this case: In Brady this Court held that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194. We have since held that the duty to disclose such evidence is applicable even though there has been no request by the accused, United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 107, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), and that the duty encompasses impeachment evidence as well as exculpatory evidence, United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 676, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985). Such evidence is material if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375; see also Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433-34, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). Moreover, the rule encompasses evidence known only to police investigators and not to the prosecutor. Id. at 438, 115 S.Ct. 1555. In order to comply with Brady, therefore, the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government's behalf in this case, including the police. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555. These cases, together with earlier cases condemning the knowing use of perjured testimony, illustrate the special role played by the American prosecutor in the search for truth in criminal trials. Within the federal system, for example, we have said that the United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935). Rogers, 782 So.2d at 377-78. In Rogers, we ultimately determined that there was a Brady violation and the defendant was entitled to a new trial because of the violation.