Opinion ID: 615193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Brady/Giglio and Napue Claims

Text: James's Brady/Giglio and Napue claims fail for the reasons we previously articulated in Libberton's case. Libberton, 583 F.3d at 1162-64. In his federal habeas petition, Libberton presented factually and legally identical Brady/Giglio and Napue claims based on the state's secret agreement with Norton. Libberton relied on the Wertsching affidavit procured by James's habeas counsel to substantiate these claims. Id. at 1158-59, 1162-64. The same police reports recording Norton's statements were provided to James and Libberton. Norton's trial testimony, including his responses to Parker's questions regarding a plea agreement, was the same in all relevant respects. In both cases, the same prosecutor, Parker, told the jury that no deal preceded Norton's December 29 statement. James and Libberton both rely on the Wertsching affidavit to prove the existence of the oral plea agreement. Finally, the state postconviction courts in both cases adopted the same materiality rationale: assuming the existence of an oral plea agreement, neither nondisclosure of nor the state's acquiescence in Norton's false testimony was material because Norton's testimony could have been corroborated by his November 26 statement to Hackworth, which preceded any plea agreement. Moreover, Norton was adequately impeached with evidence of the plea agreement that was disclosed. Finally, AEDPA's deferential standard of review applied to Libberton's claims, as it does to James's. We have already rejected Libberton's claims in a published opinion. Id. at 1162-64. With respect to the Brady/Giglio claim, we agreed with the state court's conclusion that the agreement, if it existed, was not material. Id. at 1162. We wrote: Unlike in Giglio, the key witness in this case, Norton, had already given a deeply incriminating statement to Detective Hackworth before the alleged deal was entered into. Therefore, the government could have pointed to a statement untainted by any secret deal, if such a deal existed, in order to corroborate Norton's trial testimony. Unlike in Giglio, where the jury was unaware of any deal with prosecutors, the jury in Libberton's case was well aware that Norton had reached a plea agreement with prosecutors whereby he agreed to testify in exchange for being prosecuted as a minor. The question is not whether Norton made a deal with prosecutors, but only when he did so. Given the availability of Norton's earlier statement to Hackworth as corroboration of his trial testimony, it is unlikely that the jury would have reached a different conclusion as to Libberton's guilt even if it had known of the alleged oral agreement. Id. at 1163-64 (emphasis in original). We reached a similar conclusion with respect to the Napue claim: While the precise materiality standard under Napue is slightly different than under Giglio, the result in this case is the same. Instead of asking whether there was a reasonable probability of a different outcome, a Napue violation requires a court to ask whether there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury. Hayes v. Brown, 399 F.3d 972, 985 (9th Cir.2005) (en banc). For the reasons explained above, we conclude under AEDPA that Libberton's Napue argument does not succeed. Id. at 1164. James has not identified any distinction between his case and Libberton's, nor do we see one. Consequently, we reach the same conclusion as the Libberton panel. The third PCR court did not unreasonably apply Brady, Giglio, or Napue by determining that, even if a secret agreement existed, neither the state's failure to disclose the agreement nor its failure to correct Norton's false testimony denying the existence of such an agreement was material.