Opinion ID: 521003
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The asserted Brady violations

Text: 8 Weintraub contends that the prosecution improperly withheld information in the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) investigative reports, known as DEA-6's. These reports contained summaries of statements made by Weintraub's unindicted co-conspirator, Greg Emrick, during the course of the DEA investigation. Weintraub argues that, had this information been properly revealed at trial, he could have effectively impeached Emrick's trial testimony, undermining Emrick's credibility to the extent that the jury would have acquitted Weintraub on all charges. 9 Impeachment material is evidence favorable to the accused, and as such comes under the Brady rule. Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 766, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972); United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. at 676, 105 S.Ct. at 3380. Some of Weintraub's asserted Brady violations, however, do not clearly fall within this category. Weintraub complains that the prosecution did not reveal that some of Emrick's trial testimony was not included in the DEA-6 reports. According to Weintraub, the fact that Emrick apparently failed to discuss certain information with the DEA in the course of its pretrial investigation is Brady material. We disagree. 10 The DEA-6 reports are not verbatim accounts of Emrick's pretrial statements. Instead, the reports are short, concise, summaries of the witnesses' version of the facts as recounted to the agents. United States v. Merida, 765 F.2d 1205, 1215 (5th Cir.1985). In Weintraub's case, one of the reports at issue summarized Emrick's statements made in three separate interviews conducted over the course of two and a half months. Thus, the fact that a specific piece of trial testimony is not included in a DEA-6 is not necessarily a reflection on the credibility of the witness, but instead may be the result of an agent's transcription techniques. Taking into account the realities of this summation process, this Court was not persuaded that any Brady -mandated material existed in a similar case where the accused contended that the prosecution should have revealed that specific trial testimony was not included in a DEA-6. United States v. Merida, 765 F.2d at 1216. We conclude that the fact that the DEA-6's did not contain certain statements that Emrick made at trial is not Brady material that the prosecution was under a duty to disclose. 11 Weintraub also complains that the prosecution withheld evidence that was included in the DEA-6 reports and was contradicted by Emrick's trial testimony. The first serious inconsistency involves the amount of cocaine that Weintraub was responsible for distributing. During the course of its pretrial investigation, Emrick told the DEA that he had been purchasing three to five ounces of cocaine a week from Andrew Glomb, Weintraub's partner in supplying cocaine to the Dallas area, for two and a half to three years. 3 This statement was incorporated in a DEA-6. At trial, however, Emrick testified that he had purchased six to fourteen ounces a week from Glomb and Weintraub, totalling 50 to 70 pounds in a three year period. 4 12 Emrick also contradicted a pretrial statement in his trial testimony regarding a specific cocaine transaction. Emrick testified at trial that he traveled from Dallas, Texas to Miami, Florida on December 31, 1982, arriving in Miami at 6:14 p.m. Weintraub met him at the airport, and they drove to the Airport Marriott in Miami. Emrick purchased cocaine from Weintraub in the parking lot at the Airport Marriott. According to Emrick, this entire transaction took, at most, thirty minutes, and Weintraub departed from the hotel some time between 6:30 and 6:45. 13 In a pretrial statement to DEA investigators, however, Emrick said that he had arrived in Miami at 9:00 p.m. on December 31. This time variation is critical. Weintraub had a copy of an airline ticket, introduced in evidence at the Sec. 2255 hearing, which establishes that he flew from Miami to Las Vegas on December 31, 1982, departing at 7:01 p.m. Thus, he could not have met Emrick at the Miami Airport at 9:00 p.m., as Emrick originally stated to DEA investigators. Weintraub was not able to raise this inconsistency at trial, however, because the prosecution never disclosed the fact that Emrick had originally given the 9:00 p.m. time. 5 14 The magistrate who ruled on Weintraub's Sec. 2255 motion concluded that this impeachment evidence should have been revealed to Weintraub at trial. The government concedes this point on appeal. The sole issue for this Court, then, is whether the withheld information was material, so as to require reversal of Weintraub's conviction or sentence. 15