Opinion ID: 1309503
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: pre-trial discovery requests

Text: In pre-trial motions, the defendant made several general and specific requests for discovery. The trial court ruled that I am going to require [the Commonwealth's Attorney] to give you everything ... that in any way could be exculpatory. The Commonwealth's Attorney declared that he had no exculpatory information. On appeal, the defendant complains that the Commonwealth withheld an extra-judicial statement the patient made to the police and the names of two important witnesses, one, the patient's boyfriend, and the other, the physician who examined her at a military hospital a few days after the fetus was expelled. [T]he 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.... Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1196, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Due process requires disclosure when the evidence requested is such as would tend to exculpate [the accused] or reduce the penalty. Id. at 88, 83 S.Ct. at 1197. The defendant maintains that the information he sought was material to show whether the expulsion resulted from some cause other than the saline injection. [4] While we note that the defendant did not consider the information sufficiently important to seek it by subpoenaing the records of the military hospital or by interrogating the knowledgeable witnesses at the preliminary hearing or at trial, we will assume that P. M.'s statement and the names of the boyfriend and the physician were matters relevant to the question whether the saline injection caused the expulsion of the fetus. [5] But, as we have said, since the evidence of record is sufficient to prove that the injection caused the destruction of the fetus, that question is immaterial to the offense charged in the indictment. It follows that the information requested was not constitutionally material to guilt or punishment, and we reject the defendant's complaint.