Opinion ID: 1133717
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Benefit to Freeman

Text: Ponticelli first alleges that the State violated Giglio by allowing Freeman to testify that he did not expect to receive any benefit or special treatment in regard to his testimony, despite the fact that the prosecutor's note from her telephone conversation with Freeman's defense counsel stated otherwise. This claim is without merit. As we discussed earlier in regard to Ponticelli's Brady claim, even if we accept Ponticelli's allegation that the prosecutor's note indicates that Freeman was not honest when he testified that he did not expect to receive a benefit from cooperating in Ponticelli's case, we find no prejudice. While we recognize that the materiality prong in Giglio is more defense friendly than that of Brady, we find the State has met its burden of showing that this portion of Freeman's testimony, even if not entirely true, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Guzman, 868 So.2d at 506. As explained above, Freeman was significantly impeached on his capacity for truthfulness and his incentive for testifying against Ponticelli. Therefore, informing the jury that Freeman might be testifying falsely because of his hope for an unguaranteed, unspecified award would not have rendered him sufficiently less credible in the jury's eyes to establish a reasonable possibility that this contributed to the verdict. Therefore, we deny this claim. Cf. Marshall, 854 So.2d at 1252 (denying Giglio claim based on the State's alleged promise to a witness because even assuming that the alleged promise was made, defense counsel impeached the witness regarding the subject of the promise, and the witness was not the sole witness to testify in regard to the events surrounding the murder).