Opinion ID: 551278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Prosecution's Duty.

Text: 40 In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the Supreme Court held that the suppression of favorable evidence seasonably requested by a defendant violates due process when the evidence is material to guilt or punishment. Id. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1196-97. Information useful to impeach prosecution witnesses falls within this rubric. See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 678, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3381-82, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985); Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 766, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972); United States v. Ingraldi, 793 F.2d 408, 411 (1st Cir.1986). Where, as here, the defendant has made a pretrial request for specific exculpatory information, reversal is required if nondisclosure might have affected the outcome of the trial. United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 104, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2398, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). When the issue is one of delayed disclosure rather than total nondisclosure, however, the applicable test is whether defense counsel was prevented by the delay from using the disclosed material effectively in preparing and presenting the defendant's case. Ingraldi, 793 F.2d at 411-12; accord United States v. Drougas, 748 F.2d 8, 23 (1st Cir.1984); United States v. Peters, 732 F.2d 1004, 1009 (1st Cir.1984). Although our opinions have not been explicit on the point, we believe that, absent a mistake of law, a court of appeals should review a district court's finding that delayed disclosure was harmless in the Ingraldi sense under an abuse-of-discretion standard. Cf., e.g., Real v. Hogan, 828 F.2d 58, 61 (1st Cir.1987) (abuse-of-discretion standard governs review of lower court's denial of motion for mistrial); United States v. Rodriguez, 738 F.2d 13, 17 (1st Cir.1984) (absent error of law, similar standard governs review of lower court's ruling on motion for new trial). 41 In this case, there is a factual dispute on the issue of why the delay occurred--a dispute which centers around whether the government knew of Gottlieb's psychiatric history at the time defendant made his pretrial discovery motion. Defense counsel asserts, based on what he was told by Gottlieb's attorney, that the prosecutor was informed of the witness' condition during the grand jury sessions; alternatively, defense counsel maintains that, even if the prosecutor did not actually know Gottlieb's background when the discovery request was filed, the prosecutor should have known about it because he had the witness' diaries in his possession and should have made further inquiry before responding to the discovery request. For his part, the prosecutor denies any foreknowledge and claims that, if he was told anything about Gottlieb's psychiatric history prior to the third day of trial, he has no recollection of it. 42 The district court saw no need to make an express finding on when the prosecution was first told of Gottlieb's psychiatric record. Nor do we. Defendant does not claim that the information was withheld in bad faith or deliberately suppressed. That being so, whether the prosecutor knew and simply forgot, cf. United States v. Krebs, 788 F.2d 1166, 1176 (6th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 930, 107 S.Ct. 400, 93 L.Ed.2d 353 (1986), or never knew at all, the sockdolager is that the evidence was eventually disclosed. Therefore, as the trial court rightly understood, the critical inquiry is not why disclosure was delayed but whether the tardiness prevented defense counsel from employing the material to good effect. Focusing squarely on this issue, the court below ruled that the defense was given sufficient lead time to utilize the evidence effectively. We turn, then, to this ruling, mindful that, in cases of delayed disclosure, a court's principal concern must be whether learning the information altered the subsequent defense strategy, and whether, given timeous disclosure, a more effective strategy would likely have resulted. See United States v. Olmstead, 832 F.2d 642, 649 (1st Cir.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1009, 108 S.Ct. 1739, 100 L.Ed.2d 202 (1988); United States v. Hemmer, 729 F.2d 10, 13-14 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1218, 104 S.Ct. 2666, 81 L.Ed.2d 371 (1984). 43