Opinion ID: 1763136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence At Issue Was Suppressed

Text: Engel next must prove his Brady claim as to the Mammolito evidence by showing that the State suppressed the evidence, either willfully or inadvertently. Id. There is no dispute that, during Engel's trial, he was not provided the Mammolito impeachment evidence that is the subject of his habeas claims. The State contends, however, that Engel cannot show that the Mammolito evidence was suppressed for Brady purposes because it did not exist at the time of trial. It argues that the prosecutor cannot be faulted for failing to provide not-yet-existent documents about the alleged deal made between Mammolito and investigators. Documents memorializing the deal, however, need not have existed at the time of trial; it is enough that the evidence shows that the deal itself already existed, even if had not yet been documented. Under Brady , due process requires that the prosecution disclose to the defendant any evidence in its possession that is favorable to him and that is material to his guilt or punishment. Id. Brady provides that the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government's behalf in the case, including the police. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (emphasis added). It is irrelevant to Engel's Brady claim that the Mammolito evidence at issue in his habeas request involves non-Missouri investigators. These investigators were part of Missouri's prosecutorial team in the kidnapping cases against Engel and Manning, essentially acting as the prosecutor's agents during the investigation. Similarly, it is no hindrance to Engel's Brady claim that the prosecutor did not have the same knowledge about his case as the investigators. [4] The prosecutor's lack of knowledge about information asserted in a Brady claim is not an impediment because the prosecutor is considered `the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.' Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281, 119 S.Ct. 1936 (quoting Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935)). Engel has satisfied the second prong for his Brady claim by showing that the Mammolito evidence that is the subject of his habeas petition was suppressed wrongly.