Opinion ID: 1266317
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Electronic Surveillance by Pletcher

Text: Had the jury known that Detective Rok pressured Pletcher into assenting to electronic surveillance of her conversations with Simmons by suggesting there was evidence tying her to Knaze's murder, it might well have distrusted Pletcher's testimony as another attempt to be helpful to the prosecution and avoid legal trouble herself. This evidence was particularly salient given that Pletcher initially stated that Simmons had been with her at the time of the assault on Cobaugh, and only altered her story after meeting with Detective Rok. When pressed about this inconsistency at trial, Pletcher attributed the change to having her memory refreshed by an intervening letter from Simmons. Undoubtedly the defense would have taken advantage of the opportunity to offer a competing explanation: that Pletcher only implicated Simmons in the Cobaugh assault because of a fear that otherwise she herself might face criminal liability. In an analogous case, United States v. Scheer, 168 F.3d 445 (11th Cir.1999), the Eleventh Circuit found that the prosecution's attempts to intimidate a crucial prosecution witness into testifying correctly by threatening to send him back to prison qualified as material information under Brady because it could have been used to impeach that witness at trial. Similarly, had the defense in this case had access to the information about Rok's efforts to pressure Pletcher into cooperating with the prosecution, it would have been much better positioned to cast doubt on her credibility. [7] The Commonwealth asserts that Detective Rok's threats to Pletcher were irrelevant because the jury would have understood that Simmons's girlfriend would not testify against him absent some sort of threat or pressure and would have taken that into account in judging her credibility. To the contrary, the fact that Pletcher seemed willing to condemn her boyfriend without any outside incentive to do so may very well have reinforced the damning nature of her testimony. The information about the threats against Pletcher was essential to explain why she might testify against Simmons even if he was not in fact guilty.