Opinion ID: 759483
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Brady Violations and Prosecutorial Misconduct

Text: 124 Coe's most substantial claim is that the prosecution put on deliberately false testimony, and that it withheld Brady information from him.
125 The standard for claims such as this is as follows: 126 The knowing use of false or perjured testimony constitutes a denial of due process if there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury. In order to establish prosecutorial misconduct or denial of due process, the defendants must show (1) the statement was actually false; (2) the statement was material; and (3) the prosecution knew it was false. The burden is on the defendants to show that the testimony was actually perjured, and mere inconsistencies in testimony by government witnesses do not establish knowing use of false testimony. 127 United States v. Lochmondy, 890 F.2d 817, 822 (6th Cir.1989) (citations omitted). 128 Coe's charges center on Officer Alvin Daniel, a key prosecution witness. Coe claims that Daniel knowingly lied about two important pieces of evidence. The first concerns the absence of Coe's tire tracks around the murder scene; Daniel testified that there were no tire tracks from Coe's vehicle because other vehicles' tracks had contaminated the site. However, Coe has not sufficiently proven that Daniel's testimony was false and that the prosecution knew so. At most, the record shows that Daniel's statements fall under the mere inconsistencies distinction. 129 The second item--that there was no physical evidence found in Coe's car--also fails. Daniel implied that there was no evidence found because Coe's vinyl-type seats were the sort you could wipe off. The problem, as Coe points out, is that the seats were cloth, and appear to stain easily. Once again, though, there is no evidence that Daniel and the prosecution knowingly perpetrated this fabricated testimony (indeed, Daniel himself seemed confused when he testified about it). 130 Coe's final claim in this category is that the prosecutor lied when he said that his decision to pursue the death penalty was not a quick one. However, statements by counsel are not testimony. Even if we found this to be false testimony, we would not find that there is a reasonable likelihood that it could have affected the judgment of the jury.
131 The rule of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), obligates the government to turn over evidence in its possession that is both favorable to the accused and material to guilt or punishment. Pennsylvania v. Ritchie, 480 U.S. 39, 57, 107 S.Ct. 989, 94 L.Ed.2d 40 (1987). Materiality is not found by determining (as the district court did in this case) whether there was sufficient evidence to convict even when the exculpatory evidence is added in. Rather, the proper inquiry is whether the Brady violation undermines confidence in the verdict, because there is a reasonable probability that there would have been a different result had the evidence been disclosed. See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434-35 & n. 8, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). 132 In this case, Coe says that the state committed a massive Brady violation by not turning over its investigative files to him. The contents include contemporaneous testimony from witnesses who later said different things at trial; inculpatory evidence about other suspects; and exculpatory laboratory results revealing a lack of physical evidence. 133 The state has a ready and effective reply. First of all, Brady obviously does not apply to information that is not wholly within the control of the prosecution. There is no Brady violation where a defendant 'knew or should have known the essential facts permitting him to take advantage of any exculpatory information,' or where the evidence is available ... from another source, because in such cases there is really nothing for the government to disclose. United States v. Clark, 928 F.2d 733, 738 (6th Cir.) (quoting United States v. Grossman, 843 F.2d 78, 85 (2d Cir.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1040, 109 S.Ct. 864, 102 L.Ed.2d 988 (1989)), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 885, 112 S.Ct. 240, 116 L.Ed.2d 195 (1991); see United States v. McMahon, 715 F.2d 498, 501 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1065, 104 S.Ct. 1413, 79 L.Ed.2d 739 (1984). Several of the things about which Coe complains fit into this category, such as the fact that when Coe was searched for scratch marks, he had none, and that a knife taken from his home offered no inculpatory evidence. Another such category is witnesses--people that Coe identified during his statements to the police, and to whom he had as much access as the police. Such information was not under the sole control of the government or improperly kept from Coe. 134 The next problem for Coe is that it is unclear whether the government did in fact deprive him of these materials. As the state points out, many of the materials that Coe cites appear to have been used by the defense at trial. Coe says, for instance, that he would have subjected certain witnesses to withering cross-examinations and thus exposed the inconsistencies in their stories, but the record shows that he did just that, thus suggesting that his lawyer had the materials after all. Indeed, his lawyer testified in the habeas corpus evidentiary hearing that he was confident that the prosecution would have complied with Brady, but that he did not remember what Brady materials he had received, and that his files had been lost. The government has no record of what was handed over to Coe's defense and when. Though it would be a good precautionary policy for the government to keep such records, the burden remains on Coe to prove that the evidence was not disclosed to him. See United States v. Aubin, 87 F.3d 141, 148 (5th Cir.1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1119, 117 S.Ct. 965, 136 L.Ed.2d 850 (1997); Weeks v. Jones, 26 F.3d 1030, 1047 (11th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1193, 115 S.Ct. 1258, 131 L.Ed.2d 137 (1995); United States v. Pedraza, 27 F.3d 1515, 1527 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1004, 115 S.Ct. 520, 130 L.Ed.2d 425 (1994); cf. United States v. Driscoll, 970 F.2d 1472, 1482 (6th Cir.1992) (placing burden on defendant to show that withheld materials contained material exculpatory evidence), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1083, 113 S.Ct. 1056, 122 L.Ed.2d 362 (1993). We find that he has not met this burden. 135 Even if Coe had met his burden, we are not convinced that the evidence in question, viewed as a whole, is material. The two most potentially damning sets of allegedly withheld evidence are physical evidence and evidence about a Mr. Gant, the other suspect. There were hairs found on the victim's body, for instance, that matched the hair of neither the victim nor Coe. And there was disturbing evidence about Gant--a shifting alibi, a disturbing past, a certain amount of investigation of him, and similar matters--of which Coe could have made good use. Coe's appellate counsel has done an excellent job of presenting this and other evidence to us. 136 Nevertheless, even if we assume arguendo that this evidence was not disclosed to Coe, and even if we further assume that it should have been, 4 when we view the record as a whole, we cannot conclude that our confidence in the verdict has been undermined. That is, we agree with the district court that there is not a reasonable probability that Coe would have been acquitted had this evidence been disclosed.