Opinion ID: 2976370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Information Discovered After Trial

Text: In March 1998, Jeffries’ counsel received a letter from the Kentucky Attorney General listing the results of an investigation into various third-party statements that John Dillon had admitted his involvement in McKee’s murder, including the following: (1) on June 10, 1997, the day after the sentencing, Chris Beach, at the time a prisoner in jail, told a police detective that he had in the past heard Joe Buck Dixon refer to Dillon as a rapist and that he, Tyrus Beach, and Annette Clark heard Dillon tell a girl named Tammy: “The old lady kept screaming. When he got done I was going to take my turn. She kept screaming. I had to kill the old bitch.”; (2) on or about June 12, 1997, Linda Raisor told a detective that Pocahontas Biggers (Dillon’s aunt) had told her three months ago that Dillon had admitted murdering McKee; (3) on June 24, 1997, Tiffany Solace told a sheriff’s deputy that Dillon killed McKee, but provided no basis for her belief; and (4) on January 22, 1998, Tammy and Kim Chesser told a person in a judge’s office that Dillon had threatened Nikki Chesser in connection with the case. None of these statements were known to the Commonwealth before Jeffries’ trial. On June 9, 1998, in response to this letter, Jeffries moved for a new trial in the trial court based on newly discovered evidence. He attached two affidavits to his motion: (1) Nikki Chesser’s affidavit stating that Dillon admitted killing McKee and threatened Chesser not to tell anyone about it; and (2) Beach’s affidavit that he overheard Dillon publicly declare his involvement in a killing, stating “I don’t remember if he said I did not mean to kill her or we did not mean to kill her. But after that he was real scared and crying.” A detective Pratt interviewed Dillon after Jeffries’ trial concerning these allegations. During this interview, Dillon stated that he was with a girlfriend at the time of the killings. Pratt testified at a hearing on the motion for a new trial that Dillon told him the girlfriend’s name was Jessica Peyton. Peyton testified before a grand jury that she was 11 years old at the time of McKee’s murder, did not live in the county where the murder occurred at the time of the offense, was never romantically involved with Dillon, and was not with him at the time of the offense. Jeffries presented two legal theories concerning why this new evidence warranted a new trial. First, he argued that the evidence discovered and disclosed by the Commonwealth after trial and evidence that the defense might discover after additional investigation made it reasonably certain that a new trial would have a different result. Second, he argued, based on counsel’s understanding at that time that the Commonwealth knew that third parties had heard Dillon claim responsibility for the killing before the trial, that the Commonwealth had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to Jeffries in violation of his rights under Brady. During discovery on this motion, the situation was No. 06-5726 Jeffries v. Morgan Page 4 clarified: the Commonwealth had not known before the trial about the third-party accounts of Dillon’s statements, but it had failed to turn over some information about Dillon that it did possess before trial. The Commonwealth had briefly investigated Dillon soon after the murder. A probation officer had spotted Dillon with a white teenager (not Jeffries) 7/10ths of a mile from where the body was found about half an hour before the crime was committed. Detective Rick Barbiarz interviewed Dillon, who claimed that he was with his girlfriend at the time of the killing. There is no record that anyone ever checked on Dillon's alibi. Based on Dillon’s statements and the statement of his grandmother that she was keeping Dillon on a “tight leash,” Barbiarz cleared Dillon as a suspect. In the motion hearing, Babiarz testified that he did not consider Dillon a suspect and that he was not sure if the interview had been taped. Before the trial, Jeffries’ counsel requested a list of all individuals the police questioned during the investigation, including all related notes and recordings. In its response to this request, the Commonwealth failed to include the information about Dillon in the list of suspects it had cleared. Jeffries thus modified the theory of his Brady claim, arguing that the information the Commonwealth had about Dillon pretrial was exculpatory, because it would have led the defense to discover the witnesses to Dillon’s statements admitting to the murder and weaknesses in Dillon’s alibi, all of which would have strengthened Jeffries’ defense that he had stumbled across the body after the killing. The trial court denied the motion for a new trial, and, on October 17, 2003, the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed. In addressing the Brady claim, the court stated that If the exculpatory evidence was available to the prosecution before the trial, we would have no reluctance in reversing and remanding for a new trial. . . . What we have in the current situation is the suppression of the name and interview of a suspect before trial. Neither the name nor the results of the interview are in themselves exculpatory. This case is similar to Wood v. Bartholomew, wherein the Supreme Court quoted (with approval) the Federal District Court’s analysis of the suppressed evidence as being not exculpatory evidence but “[t]he information withheld only possibly could have led to some admissible evidence.” Wood, 516 U.S. [1,] 5 [(1995)] (emphasis in original).