Opinion ID: 2996468
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Woodall’s testimony and impeachment evidence

Text: Woodall testified that he and nine other officers executed a search warrant at Souffront’s apartment. Woodall cataNos. 00-2837, 00-3017, 00-3070, and 00-3514 11 logued the evidence brought to him by the other officers. The items recovered included a .38 caliber handgun and a fire extinguisher with a false bottom which concealed a quantity of powder and rock cocaine. No substantive charges were based on this cocaine. The handgun, fire extinguisher, and cocaine were introduced into evidence at trial. The scope of Woodall’s testimony involved identifying the exhibits which had been collected by the other officers. The materials disclosed by the government indicate that Woodall was being investigated for allegedly stealing narcotics from the car of a purported drug dealer named Garza, who had no involvement in the defendants’ conspiracy. The district court conceded this evidence would be favorable to the defendants in order to impeach the credibility of Woodall’s testimony in defendants’ case. However, the remaining question is whether this evidence was material to an issue at trial, see Silva, 71 F.3d at 670, which would then have changed the result of the trial if the information had been disclosed to the defendants. See Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682. Defendants argue that Woodall was not a credible witness to the search of Souffront’s apartment because he allegedly acted improperly on a prior occasion and that the evidence from the search should have been excluded because Woodall was involved. Defendants conclude this entitles them to a new trial yet they have not demonstrated that Woodall’s testimony was false. In a single, tape-recorded conversation with Colon, Souffront corroborated Woodall’s testimony. Souffront told Colon that the police “got a gun from the house,” “took the rest of the [cocaine],” and recovered “the fire extinguisher.” The trial record indicates Woodall’s testimony was corroborated not only by other witnesses, including conversations between some of the defendants and testimony from Herrera and Escobar, but by the government’s physical 12 Nos. 00-2837, 00-3017, 00-3070, and 00-3514 evidence. Even without the evidence found in Souffront’s apartment, additional evidence against the defendants was so overwhelming that it was sufficient to convict them of the charges. There was no reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different, see Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendants’ motion based on this factor.