Opinion ID: 2489132
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: cbla

Text: Wyatt also contends that he is entitled to a new trial because newly discovered evidence establishes that the FBI admitted to providing false testimony in his trial, which constitutes either a Brady or Giglio violation. Alternatively, he alleges that he is entitled to relief based on newly discovered evidence under Jones. In addition, he summarily asserts that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. [12] At the trial, the State called FBI Agent Riley, who testified as an expert on CBLA, which compares the elemental composition of lead bullets for forensic value. Specifically, Agent Riley opined that by comparing the elemental composition of the bullets found in the victim with bullets that Wyatt was known to have possessed after the murder, he was able to determine that the bullet found in Nydegger and the bullets Wyatt possessed after the murders came from the same box of ammunition or from another box of ammunition that was manufactured at the same place on the same date. Years after Wyatt's trial, on February 10, 2004, the National Research Council (NRC) published a report that questioned the scientific reliability as to certain aspects of CBLA testimony. On September 1, 2005, the FBI issued a press release announcing that the agency was discontinuing its use of CBLA. On August 7, 2008, while the postconviction appeal was pending before this Court, the FBI informed the State by letter that it had reviewed Agent Riley's testimony in this case and concluded that his testimony exceeded the scope of the science of CBLA. The letter stated in pertinent part: After reviewing the testimony of the FBI examiner, it is the opinion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory that the examiner stated or implied that the evidentiary specimen(s) could be associated to a single box of ammunition. This type of testimony exceeds the limits of the science and cannot be supported by the FBI. Your office is encouraged to consult appellate specialists in your jurisdiction to determine whether you have any discovery obligations with respect to the finding stated above. As directed by the Department of Justice, we are notifying the Chief Judge of the court in which this case was tried of the results of our review by copying him or her on this letter. Additionally, you should be aware that the FBI is cooperating with the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is interested in determining whether improper bullet lead analysis testimony was material to the conviction of any defendant, and, if so, to ensure appropriate remedial actions are taken. Based on this letter, Wyatt raised a Giglio claim and a Brady claim, asserting that the State withheld evidence and failed to correct false testimony given by Agent Riley regarding whether CBLA could support the determination that a certain bullet originated from a certain box of ammunition. This Court relinquished jurisdiction following the State's receipt of the FBI letter, and the postconviction court conducted a second evidentiary hearing. The court subsequently denied relief on the revised CBLA claim. We agree with the postconviction court. Wyatt's Giglio claim suffers from the same concern that we have thoroughly discussed in the opinion on the postconviction appeal arising from the Domino's Pizza murder caseWyatt failed to present any evidence that the prosecutor had knowledge of the problems pertaining to CBLA evidence at the time of trial. Wyatt, 71 So.3d at 101-02. Accordingly, we deny Wyatt's Giglio claim for the reasons addressed in the postconviction appeal relating to the Domino's Pizza murder case. See id. at 102 ([T]he postconviction court properly found that Wyatt presented no evidence that the prosecutor had knowledge of these alleged falsehoods. As Wyatt's own experts indicated, research uncovering flaws in CBLA did not surface until well after Wyatt's trial. Thus, Wyatt has failed to satisfy the second prong of Giglio. . . .). He also raises a Brady claim, asserting that the State suppressed favorable evidence because the State failed to disclose that the CBLA technique to which Agent Riley testified at trial was unscientific and unsound and that there was a lack of comprehensive research necessary to ensure the reliability of CBLA results. Again, as we held in Wyatt, 71 So.3d at 103: Wyatt has not satisfied the second prong of Brady. Wyatt's own experts testified that neither the 2008 letter nor any comprehensive research uncovering the flaws in CBLA existed until well after Wyatt's trial in 1991. Accordingly, the State could not have willfully or inadvertently suppressed such information. Wyatt briefly asserts that he received ineffective assistance of counsel [t]o the extent that defense counsel could have known that junk science was being used against [him]. However, as discussed in more detail in our opinion regarding the Domino's Pizza murder case, Wyatt has failed to present any evidence that counsel could have discovered the flaws in the CBLA evidence when this evidence did not exist until years after Wyatt's trial was concluded. Id. Defense counsel hired an expert to review the FBI's CBLA analysis, but did not present this expert at trial because the expert did not have an opinion that was favorable to the defense. Id. Accordingly, we deny this claim. In Wyatt's remaining CBLA claim, he asserts that he is entitled to a new trial because newly discovered evidence shows that the CBLA testimony, which was relied upon at trial, exceeded the bounds of the science. As addressed above, to obtain a new trial based on newly discovered evidence: (1) the evidence must have been unknown by the trial court, by the party, or by counsel at the time of trial, and it must appear that defendant or his counsel could not have known [of it] by the use of diligence; and (2) the evidence must be of such nature that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial. Jones, 709 So.2d at 521 (internal quotation marks omitted). The postconviction court denied this claim, holding that the letter did not meet the first prong of Jones because the letter was not in existence at the time of the 1991 trial. For the reasons we set forth in more detail in our opinion on the Domino's murders, we hold that the postconviction court erred in concluding that the CBLA claim did not constitute newly discovered evidence on this basis. See Wyatt, 71 So.3d at 99-100. [13] We hold that the case-specific letter authored by the FBI in this case constitutes newly discovered evidence because the letter consists of facts that Wyatt could not have known at the time of trial, and neither Wyatt nor defense counsel could have known of the facts by the use of diligence. Thus, we turn to the second prong of Jones whether this newly discovered evidence is of such a nature that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial. Jones, 709 So.2d at 521. We conclude that this would not probably produce an acquittal for several reasons. First, the CBLA evidence as it was presented at trial supported only that the bullet from the victim matched the bullets that Wyatt left with Fox. As defense counsel elicited during the cross-examination of Agent Riley, the CBLA testing did not reveal who purchased the bullets or whether Wyatt or Lovette fired the fatal bullet. Furthermore, the evidence against Wyatt included the following: Wyatt admitted to being with Nydegger at the bar and leaving with her; her body was found the next day across the State on State Route 60close to where he had previously abandoned a stolen car; near Nydegger's body were stuffed animals that were consistent with the animals that she won from the crane game that she had played with Wyatt; Wyatt admitted driving her car on the afternoon after she was murdered, which he later abandoned; a pillow found in her abandoned car was similar to the pillows at the hotel where Wyatt stayed the night that he met Nydegger; Wyatt had possessed a gun that was consistent with having fired the fatal shot; when Wyatt discovered that Fox had pawned this gun, he was angry and told Fox that he had used the gun to kill; upon his arrest in South Carolina, Wyatt admitted that his alter ego Jim had killed and did bad things in Florida. In addition, a fellow inmate, Patrick McCoombs, testified that Wyatt admitted he killed Nydegger and that he had wanted to kill her ever since he left the bar with her that evening. He told McCoombs that he blew off the top of her head and dumped the body on State Route 60 near Yeehaw Junction. These details were consistent with the evidence presented at trial and were not available from any source other than Wyatt himself. Based on all of the evidence presented, the elimination of the CBLA evidence would not probably produce an acquittal in light of the overwhelming evidence of Wyatt's guilt. Thus, we deny relief.