Opinion ID: 3160470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disclosure and Prejudice

Text: Under Brady v. Maryland, the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). Impeachment evidence falls within this general rule, when a witness's reliability can determine the defendant's guilt or innocence. Giglio v. United 2 We note that what was relevant to establishing Rodriguez's motive to help the prosecution was his belief that he had a deal, not whether Rodriguez's belief was correct. - 7 - States, 405 U.S. 150, 154 (1972). Evidence is material if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Kyles, 514 U.S. at 433–34 (quoting Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682). A 'reasonable probability' of a different result is . . . shown when the government's evidentiary suppression 'undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.' Id. at 434 (quoting Bagley, 473 U.S. at 678). There were two main prosecution witnesses -- both Latin Kings members subordinate to Rosario -- whose testimony was essential to the verdict. Both acknowledged they had cooperation agreements, but that did not dissuade the jury from convicting Rosario. Rodriguez's testimony certainly supported the verdict in the sense that he corroborated testimony about the locations of the defendant and other players at various times. But the main import for the prosecution of Rodriguez's testimony was that he heard Rosario tell Olmo, I'm your worst nightmare.3 Significantly, there were two other witnesses who testified as to the nightmare statement. First, Sharoll Burgos, who was at Vasquez's house as well, testified to hearing Rosario say that. When the assistant district attorney discussed the statement at closing argument, she said Sharoll Burgos testified. 3 Rodriguez did not mention this statement to the police in his initial interview with them. - 8 - 'I'll be here when you get here. I'm your worst nightmare.' When the prosecutor mentions the nightmare statement a second time, she again attributes it to Burgos, not Rodriguez. Further, the assistant district attorney did not ever in closing argument attribute the statement to Rodriguez's testimony. In fact, the prosecutor's only mention of Rodriguez in closing argument was in the context of the shooting itself where, in response to an argument made by Rosario's counsel, she says, Do you really think that Luis Rodriguez remembers, oh, he was fixated straight ahead? Second, Olmo himself testified that Rosario made the statement to him. Rosario concedes that other than for his testimony about the statement, Rodriguez admittedly, was . . . a relatively minor witness for the Commonwealth. Rosario contends that Rodriguez was the only neutral witness because Burgos was romantically interested in Olmo, thereby giving her a reason to corroborate whatever his story was. He also notes that Burgos did not mention that Rosario was at Vasquez's apartment when she first spoke to the police and that Burgos told the police about Rosario's threat only after Olmo gave a statement to the police. The defense counsel cross-examined Burgos about this at trial. And the defense counsel also impeached Rodriguez with prior convictions and cross-examined him about inconsistencies between his statements to the police -- where in the report of his first statement, there was no mention of - 9 - Rodriguez hearing Rosario say anything, and in the report of the second statement, it said that Rodriguez heard Rosario say, I'm your worst enemy (not nightmare) -- and his testimony on the stand. There was also other independent evidence from which the jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Rosario had ordered the shooting. The jury learned about three incidents where Rosario confronted Olmo and the victim before the night of the murder. Rosario's disinterested coworker told the police that the day after the shooting Rosario was acting differently and said, I snuffed somebody. Rosario also called Olmo the day after the shooting to say, I told you something bad would happen . . . Latin King love. There was no reasonable probability that the unsigned letter of a possible cooperation agreement would have affected the outcome. Finally, Rosario argues that evidence of the suppression itself was material because it could have suggested that the prosecution had something to hide and that the Commonwealth had such a vested interest in sticking to its theory of [the] prosecution that it felt the need to offer Rodriguez a cooperation agreement. Ultimately, this claim too fails. Unlike Kyles, which involved several pieces of evidence favorable to the defendant that if disclosed would have born light on the thoroughness and even the good faith of the investigation, 514 U.S. at 423–29, - 10 - 445, or United States v. Flores-Rivera, which involved a letter a witness sent to the prosecutor that the prosecutor acknowledged having, disclosure of which could have allowed counsel to call into question the credibility of . . . implicitly, the lead prosecutor, 787 F.3d 1, 11–12, 19 (1st Cir. 2015), here, whether there was a cooperation agreement is itself very much in dispute. At the motion for a new trial hearing, the assistant district attorney maintained that no agreement was offered and that the letter should not have been sent. Further, the letter was unsigned, and while it began with Rodriguez's name on it, at the end, it included an Acknowledgement of Agreement with the name of an unrelated party, suggesting that while the Commonwealth may have contemplated a cooperation agreement, the document was not a final draft. The letter would have had minimal value in calling the prosecutor's motives into question, and there is no reasonable probability that it would have affected the jury verdict.