Opinion ID: 2345401
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the error prejudice appellant?

Text: We do not reverse convictions in order to punish prosecutors, see United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 506-7, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983), but to remedy prejudice resulting from the trial court's error in excluding evidence of the prosecutor's nondisclosure that was probative of the questions that were presented to the jury for decision. Here, even if the court had allowed evidence of the government's Brady violation to come in, and defense counsel had argued to the jury that the government withheld the evidence because it thought its case was weak, we can conclude, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.. . . Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). Although appellant was unable to present evidence that at the first trial the government had failed to disclose Boyd's interview with Officer Woodward, and to argue to the jury that the government had done so because it considered that the revelation would seriously undermine the prosecution, the fact remains that by the close of the second trial, the jury was presented with the substantive evidence that Boyd had initially failed to identify appellant at the hospital. Ultimately, the jury rejected that evidence as not dispositive on the issue of identification. It is not difficult to see why. Boyd's statement at the hospital was recounted in Officer Woodward's testimony, which, due to its ambiguity, did not have much force: Defense Counsel: Did [Boyd] tell you I don't know who shot me . . .? Officer Woodward: I'm not sure of his exact words, if he said I don't know or I didn't see or all's I saw was a dark colored, someone shoot at me from a dark-colored car. Although Officer Woodward later testified that Boyd did not mention appellant of his own accord, and it appears that Boyd did not accuse appellant even after the officer prompted him about the earlier beef appellant had with Boyd, the context in which this interview took place reasonably could have persuaded the jury that it was understandable that Boyd did not tell the whole story at that time. Officer Woodward interviewed Boyd less than an hour after he had sustained several serious bullet wounds. [20] To Officer Woodward, Boyd appeared to be in pain, scared, kind of unsure of what was going to happen to him. Boyd testified that he did not remember what he told Officer Woodward because he was dizzy, probably drugged. . . had a lot of drugs . . . wasn't very conscious of what was going on at the moment. But when Boyd had fully regained consciousness after surgery, he was then able to tell Detective Francis that appellant was the shooter. Due to Boyd's vulnerable physical and mental state at the time Officer Woodward interviewed him, the jury appears to have simply dismissed as relatively unimportant his initial failure to identify appellant. Moreover, Durham, who knew appellant from the neighborhood and was not significantly impeached, saw the shooting and identified appellant as the shooter. Therefore, it is difficult to conceive that it would have made much difference to the jury if it had known that the prosecutor in the first trial thought that Boyd's exculpatory statement at the hospital undercut the government's case, and for that reason failed to make a timely disclosure. [21]