Opinion ID: 3013505
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Merits of the Brady Claim

Text: It is clearly established that “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.” Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). Brady thus envisions two requirements for overturning a verdict: (1) that evidence in the possession of the government was actually suppressed, and (2) that the suppressed evidence was material. In this case, the Commonwealth disputes both prongs of this test. Because of Slutzker’s failure to bring this claim before any Pennsylvania court, there is no state court decision on the merits of the Brady claim to which we owe deference under AEDPA. See infra Part III. We therefore analyze the issue de novo.
First, the Commonwealth argues that there is no proof that the twenty-one police reports that Slutzker received on September 11, 2001, had actually been withheld from him at his original trial. The Assistant District Attorney who had prosecuted Slutzker at his 1991-1992 trial stated, during Slutzker’s 1997 PCRA hearing, that she had turned over all documents in her possession, and that this was her common practice. Slutzker, however, offers substantial evidence that the documents were not, in fact, turned over prior to trial. While Slutzker’s trial attorney, Charles Scarlata, died prior to September 2001, his PCRA attorney, Chris Eyster, has represented that the twenty-one disputed police reports were not in Scarlata’s file when Eyster reviewed that file in developing the PCRA petition. Also probative is the fact that Scarlata, at trial, stated that Cynthia 19 DeMann was “interviewed twice” and “failed to identify” Slutzker. One of the disputed reports was of a third interview with Mrs. DeMann, in which she not only “failed to identify” Slutzker, but in fact positively stated that the man she saw was not Slutzker, and was significantly shorter than Slutzker. Scarlata never impeached Mrs. DeMann with these statements, though she was a crucial prosecution witness and he had impeached her with her prior failures to identify Slutzker. We view this omission as significant evidence that Scarlata did not, in fact, have the third DeMann report at the time of Slutzker’s trial. We are therefore not at all convinced by the Commonwealth’s contention that the disputed reports had been turned over to the defense prior to trial. The Commonwealth’s only evidence for this claim is a general statement by the prosecutor that it was her practice to turn over evidence to the defense; against this, there is both testimonial and circumstantial evidence indicating that the defense did not have access to the reports. It seems clear enough that Slutzker did not have access to the police reports before trial, and therefore that the first Brady prong is satisfied.13
We next consider whether the suppressed police reports 13 There is a surprising dearth of precedent regarding the burden of proof of nondisclosure of Brady evidence. But see United States. v. Earnest, 129 F.3d 906, 910 (7th Cir. 1997) (“To be entitled to relief under Brady, the defendant must establish 1) that the prosecution suppressed evidence; 2) that the evidence was favorable to the defense; and 3) that the evidence was material to an issue at trial.” (internal quotation marks omitted and emphasis added)). We note that, in general, the prosecution is more likely to have knowledge of the contents of its files; traditionally, the burden of proof is allocated to the party that is better able to inform itself about the issue. Cf. Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 96 (1961) (“[T]he ordinary rule, based on considerations of fairness, does not place the burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within the knowledge of his adversary.”). Nonetheless we need not decide this issue here, as Slutzker’s showing that the reports were withheld is convincing, and the Commonwealth has not put forward any forceful evidence to the contrary. 20 were “material either to guilt or to punishment.” Brady, 373 U.S. at 87. The Supreme Court has elucidated the Brady materiality standard as follows: [The] touchstone of materiality is a “reasonable probability” of a different result, and the adjective is important. The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434 (1995). Evidence that tends to impeach prosecution witnesses may be material under this standard. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 676 (1985). The District Court here found that two of the undisclosed police reports were material. The first of these was the January 15, 1976, Cynthia DeMann interview. As noted above, Mrs. DeMann stated in this interview that the man she saw speaking to Arlene Mudd after the murder was not Slutzker, but was significantly shorter than Slutzker. At trial, fifteen years later, Mrs. DeMann testified that this man was, in fact, Slutzker; hence there is little doubt that the January 15 report constitutes material impeachment evidence. It directly contradicts M rs. DeMann’s trial testimony. While the defense was able to impeach Mrs. DeMann with two other police reports in which she failed to identify the man she saw speaking with Arlene Mudd, there is a significant difference between a failure to identify Slutzker and a definitive statement that the man she saw was not Slutzker. The latter is much more convincing impeachment evidence, and the failure to disclose it leaves us in doubt that the trial verdict was worthy of confidence. This is particularly true because Mrs. DeMann was perhaps the only credible eyewitness who testified to seeing Slutzker near the scene of the crime. The other three witnesses may not have been as believable to the jury as Mrs. DeMann. John Mudd Jr., who was five years old at the time of the murder, testified to “recovered memories” whose authenticity was strenuously disputed, and had obvious incentives to incriminate Slutzker. Amy Slutzker, who was six years old at the time of the murder and remembered nothing else from that time of her life, also spoke of dubious memories, and was obviously long estranged from her father. Officer Timothy Brendlinger, who did not know Slutzker’s appearance as well as 21 Mrs. DeMann did, was himself impeached at trial by the testimony of his partner, Officer Mangano, and by the contents of a report that he had made at the time of the murder. Officer Brendlinger’s report failed to mention seeing Arlene Mudd talking to anyone outside of her house on the night of the murder, and Officer Mangano testified that Brendlinger had not mentioned his identification of Slutzker at the time. As the Magistrate Judge put it, Mrs. DeMann “was the only [eyewitness] who was truly a disinterested party, in that she had no relation to the Commonwealth, the victim or the Petitioner.” Thus we find that denying Slutzker the opportunity to impeach her with her January 15 statement materially impacted the fairness of his trial.14 Although the Commonwealth presented significant evidence against Slutzker, the case for convicting him was far from overwhelming. The eyewitness accounts placing him at the scene were questionable, and the circumstantial evidence, while certainly i n c r im i n a t i n g , w a s a l s o c o n s is t e n t w i t h o t h e r conclusions—including that Arlene Mudd herself, or someone else acting at her behest, killed Mudd. If Slutzker had had a fair opportunity to impeach the most reliable eyewitness, the outcome of his trial might well have been different. In sum, we agree with the District Court that the police report describing Cynthia DeMann’s January 15, 1976, interview 14 The District Court also found that the statements of Dennis and Susan Ward, two other neighbors of the Mudds, were material. We cannot agree. The District Court read the Wards’ statements to “suggest that the unidentified man trying to calm Mrs. Mudd down outside her house, was actually Mrs. Mudd’s neighbor, Mr. Ward, not Petitioner,” and determined that Slutzker’s attorney would have called them to testify at trial if he had had access to the report. In fact, however, Mr. Ward told the police that he spoke to Mrs. Mudd in front of his own house at least ten minutes after the murder—not in front of the Mudd house immediately after the murder. The Wards also made a number of statements indicating that they believed Slutzker was involved in the murder. We therefore do not agree either that the defense would likely have called the Wards, or that their testimony would have proven helpful to the defense. Furthermore, we agree with the District Court that the remainder of the police reports do not meet the standard of materiality, for essentially the reasons set forth in the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendations. 22 was material evidence, and that the Commonwealth’s failure to disclose it constituted a violation of due process. We reiterate that this conclusion also bears on our procedural default analysis: because we find that the report was material, we also find that prejudice would result from Slutzker’s procedural default. See supra Part II.B.3.d.