Opinion ID: 542873
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exculpatory Nature of Evidence

Text: 39 The district court also concluded that the information in the police record was not sufficiently favorable to Smith to qualify under Brady, as Smith could have used the record only as a source of additional prior inconsistent statements to impeach the state's witnesses. Id. at 658. Again, this is only an assertion that the material's revelation would have been immaterial to the outcome, as impeachment material is clearly exculpatory and qualifies as Brady material. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. at 676, 105 S.Ct. at 3380; United States v. Irwin, 661 F.2d 1063, 1068 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 907, 102 S.Ct. 1754, 72 L.Ed.2d 164 (1982); United States v. Anderson, 574 F.2d 1347, 1355 (5th Cir.1978). This is true as well of material that provides an additional, but not exclusive, basis for impeachment. See Monroe v. Blackburn, 607 F.2d 148, 152 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 957, 100 S.Ct. 2929, 64 L.Ed.2d 816 (1980). 40 The nondisclosed statements of Thomas and Wells were not sheerly redundant, but rather constituted the most contemporary appraisals of their alleged observation of Smith, and combined with their failure to previously identify Smith as the person they observed cast doubt on the credibility of their latent identifications and on the testimony of Oatis. The statements are more than merely cumulative; Thomas and Wells both evidence an inability to describe the assailant, a distinct cognitive exercise from the identification of a suspect as the assailant. Equally important, the statements are less easily explicable than the inconsistencies stressed by Smith's counsel in his cross-examination of Thomas and Wells, which were excused at trial as the product of various pressures brought to bear on the eyewitnesses. A jury might reasonably doubt the credibility of witnesses who had earlier sworn ignorance before the police as well.