Opinion ID: 2586281
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant's Brady Claim

Text: Defendant essentially asserts the Brady violation that led the court to grant Alvarado's new trial motion had a spillover effect as to him because he and Alvarado had a strategic understanding that if one defendant testified, the other defendant would also have to testify. Defendant contends the timely disclosure of the Weil report would have led him to testify due to a change in this joint defense strategy. As the trial court acknowledged during the hearing on the new trial motions, Brady claims typically require showing the different result of the proceeding in terms of the verdict, rather than in terms of an intermediate event such as a defendant's testifying. Defendant essentially ignores the issue of how his testimony would have changed the verdict. If, however, defendant cannot establish the materiality of the Weil report even as to the intermediate event of his decision whether to testify, then he has failed to establish the verdict would have been different. As discussed below, we conclude defendant has failed to establish materiality even as to his decision whether to testify.