Opinion ID: 151577
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Timing of Brady Disclosures

Text: Under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the Government must disclose to the defense any “information in the possession of the prosecutor and his investigating officers that is helpful to the defendant.” United States v. Price, 566 F.3d 900, 903 (9th Cir. 2009) (emphasis omitted). “The three elements of a Brady violation are: (1) the evidence at issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is impeaching; (2) that evidence must have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or inadvertently; and (3) prejudice must have ensued.” United States v. Williams, 547 F.3d 1187, 1202 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). “We review de novo claims of Brady violations.” Id. at 1202 n.12. Defendants claim that the Government committed a Brady violation by disclosing too late certain FBI interview reports (“302s”) revealing that John Saguibo, a key Government witness, worked as a confidential informant or 8 confidential source for local police officers in an arguably related precursor investigation. We assume without deciding that the relevant reports were impeachment material that the Government should have disclosed. See generally United States v. Ochoa-Sanchez, 676 F.2d 1283, 1288 (9th Cir. 1982) (“[D]efendant conducted a meaningful cross-examination using impeaching information that the witness was an informant and had assisted the government in other cases.”). Although we do not condone the piecemeal manner in which the prosecution disclosed the evidence, we conclude that defendants were not prejudiced in this case by the timing of the disclosure. The only specific prejudice defendants identified was their inability to consider an entrapment defense, but any such defense would have been highly implausible based on the evidence in this case. Even if defendants could have put on such a defense, they were not prejudiced by the delayed disclosure of the FBI’s reports. For more than two years before trial, defendants had recordings of Saguibo’s wiretapped phone conversations that made clear he was a police informant. Defendants were provided with transcripts of those conversations more than a year before trial. At least one defense attorney stated before trial that Saguibo had gathered intelligence for the police. In light of these facts, the district court’s finding that defendants had knowledge of Saguibo’s 9 cooperation with the police before trial started was not clearly erroneous. The delayed production of cumulative evidence of that cooperation was not prejudicial. See Rhoades v. Henry, 598 F.3d 495, 504 (9th Cir. 2010). Moreover, when the Government turned over the evidence under court order, defendants still had time to prepare for cross-examination. The Government need not turn over Brady evidence before trial as long as the disclosure is “made at a time when [the] disclosure would be of value to the accused.” United States v. Aichele, 941 F.2d 761, 764 (9th Cir. 1991). In this case, the last of the FBI reports was turned over two weeks before Saguibo was cross-examined. We conclude that there was no Brady violation because defendants were not prejudiced by the timing of the disclosure in this case. See Rhoades, 598 F.3d at 504.