Opinion ID: 4535302
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Production of the color copies

Text: Next, we see no evidence to support the idea that the latein-the-game production of color copies from Reyes-Romero’s A-file suggests bad faith on the Government’s part. Under the line of cases springing from Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), prosecutors have an affirmative duty to disclose material evidence favorable to the defendant. Dennis v. Sec’y, 834 F.3d 263, 284 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc). But there is no question that AUSA Hallowell, after having received the color copies, promptly shared them with Reyes-Romero’s counsel and with the District Court. That he did so was consistent with his Brady obligations as well as good faith in the management of the prosecution. Nor is there anything to suggest the Government exhibited bad faith by producing the color copies months into the 51 prosecution rather than at the outset. To begin, our precedent on the timing of Brady disclosures requires only that the government “make[] [the] evidence available during the course of a trial in such a way that a defendant is able effectively to use it.” United States v. Moreno, 727 F.3d 255, 262 (3d Cir. 2013) (citation omitted). Reyes-Romero was certainly able to use the color copies of the forms to his benefit; those copies fed into the District Court’s decision granting his § 1326(d) motion. More to the point, there was no reason why AUSA Hallowell— or, for that matter, Reyes-Romero’s counsel, who was given an opportunity to access or request the original files—could have anticipated that the color copies would contain meaningful, relevant evidence that the black-and-white reproductions did not. Under those circumstances, AUSA Hallowell lacked “actual or constructive possession” of the information contained in the color copies, Hollman v. Wilson, 158 F.3d 177, 180 (3d Cir. 1998), and accordingly that he did not request or produce them earlier in the litigation does not give rise to an inference of bad faith. We end by addressing the assertion that the production of black-and-white copies was “a clear implication of conscious wrongdoing,” App. 40, on the part of unnamed DHS officials. Because the Hyde Amendment is concerned only with prosecutorial misconduct, even such unscrupulous conduct by an independent executive department could not be laid at the prosecution’s feet without a reasonable and logical basis for doing so. Moreover, a review of the record here reveals nothing apart from speculation suggesting that DHS’s production of blackand-white copies was intended to shield Reyes-Romero’s A-file from scrutiny—rather than, for instance, being the 52 product of an outdated photocopier or cost-saving printing procedures. So thin a reed cannot justify a Hyde Amendment award.