Opinion ID: 3066183
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Review of the Court of Appeal’s Decision

Text: The Court of Appeal found that Amado’s Brady claim failed because Amado did not establish (1) “the newlydiscovered nature of the evidence,” and (2) his counsel’s “inability to discover and produce the evidence at trial, with the exercise of due diligence.” Under AEDPA, we defer to that finding unless the decision of the Court of Appeal is (1) “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States;” or (2) “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). As we discuss below, nothing in the record suggests that defense counsel knew before or during trial, or otherwise reasonably had available to him, the key evidence that the prosecutor had failed to disclose, and which could have made a significant difference in impeaching the key witness against Amado. AMADO V. GONZALEZ 27
The Court of Appeal ruled that Amado did not establish “the newly discovered nature of the evidence.” If his counsel had known of the impeachment material at or before the time of trial, the prosecutor cannot be said to have suppressed anything, and there was no Brady violation. See Banks, 540 U.S. at 691. However, the record does not support the Court of Appeal’s ruling, and it was inconsistent with the proceedings in the Superior Court. There, the prosecutor did not contest Amado’s argument that his attorney did not receive Hardy’s probation report until after trial, too late to use in cross examination. The Superior Court accepted Amado’s contention that the evidence was newly discovered, and ruled against him on other grounds. And the trial record indicates that Amado’s counsel was unaware of this impeachment evidence at the time Hardy was cross examined. Although the Superior Court ruled that the cross examination of Hardy was vigorous, the cross examination focused on Hardy’s vision. Had Amado’s counsel been aware of the probation report, he surely would have cross examined Hardy regarding his prior convictions, his felony-probationary status, and his connection with the Piru Bloods. The Court of Appeal explained its ruling by commenting that Lapan’s representation, that he had not learned of the impeachment material until after trial, was “argument,” and thus not evidence. But the Court of Appeal ignored that it had granted Amado’s motion to augment the record and that Lapan’s sworn declaration provided record testimony that he “did not learn until after trial that Warren Hardy was on felony probation as a result of a robbery conviction and that in the probation report from that offense, Hardy stated he was 28 AMADO V. GONZALEZ a ‘Piru Blood.’” There was no basis to conclude that Lapan had merely provided “argument,” to question Lapan’s veracity, or to overrule the Superior Court’s acceptance of the evidence as newly discovered. Under § 2254(d)’s unreasonable determination clause, “a federal court may not second-guess a state court’s fact-finding process unless, after review of the state-court record, it determines that the state court was not merely wrong, but actually unreasonable.” Taylor v. Maddox, 366 F.3d 992, 999 (9th Cir. 2004). “[I]t is not enough that we would reverse in similar circumstances if this were an appeal from a district court decision. Rather, we must be convinced that an appellate panel, applying the normal standards of appellate review, could not reasonably conclude that the finding is supported by the record.” Id. at 1000 (citations omitted). We hold that the decision of the Court of Appeal, that Amado had not established that the evidence was newly discovered, was an “unreasonable determination of the facts,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). There was nothing in the record that could support a finding that Lapan had the evidence that the prosecutor had suppressed when Lapan conducted his defense of Amado.
The Court of Appeal ruled that Amado’s Brady claim failed because he did not establish “an inability to discover and produce the evidence at trial, with the exercise of due diligence.” The issue is whether that ruling is “contrary to . . . clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). AMADO V. GONZALEZ 29 A decision is “contrary to” Supreme Court precedent “if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court’s] cases or if it confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme] Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [the Supreme Court’s] precedent.” Early v. Packer, 537 U.S. 3, 8 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under Brady, as the United States Supreme Court’s decisions clearly establish, the prosecutor has a “broad duty of disclosure.” Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281. The prosecutor must presume in favor of disclosure, and resolve his doubts about the exculpatory nature of a document in favor of producing it. See United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 108 (1976) (ruling that “the prudent prosecutor will resolve doubtful questions in favor of disclosure”). If a prosecutor has an open-file policy, defense counsel is entitled to rely on that policy and assume that the file will contain the documents that will be useful for impeachment or that tend to exculpate his client. See Strickler, 527 U.S. at 283 n.23 (“if a prosecutor asserts that he complies with Brady through an open file policy, defense counsel may reasonably rely on that file to contain all materials the State is constitutionally obligated to disclose under Brady”). See also Banks, 540 U.S. at 695 (“Our decisions lend no support to the notion that defendants must scavenge for hints of undisclosed Brady material when the prosecution represents that all such material has been disclosed.”). In other words, defense counsel may rely on the prosecutor’s obligation to produce that which Brady and Giglio require him to produce. The Court of Appeal’s requirement of due diligence would flip that obligation, and enable a prosecutor to excuse 30 AMADO V. GONZALEZ his failure by arguing that defense counsel could have found the information himself. The proposition is contrary to federal law as clearly established by the Supreme Court, see Early, 537 U.S. at 8, and unsound public policy. Especially in a period of strained public budgets, a prosecutor should not be excused from producing that which the law requires him to produce, by pointing to that which conceivably could have been discovered had defense counsel expended the time and money to enlarge his investigations. No Brady case discusses such a requirement, and none should be imposed. See Banks, 540 U.S. at 691 (setting forth the essential elements of a Brady claim). The State argues that our own precedents support such an argument. The cases are distinguishable. They hold only that defense counsel cannot ignore that which is given to him or of which he otherwise is aware, and not that he is obliged to conduct interviews or investigations himself. For example, in United States v. Aichele, 941 F.2d 761, 764 (9th Cir. 1991), the federal government had given defense counsel a transcript of an interview with a crucial government witness and the witness’s rap sheet, but had not also supplied the witness’s state prison records. We held that Brady had been satisfied, because “[t]he prosecution is under no obligation to turn over materials not under its control,” and, “here, [the] defendant ha[d] enough information to be able to ascertain the supposed Brady material on his own.” Id. This court has since clarified that Aichele stands for the proposition that the federal government’s Brady obligation does not extend to “files that were under the exclusive control of [state] officials.” Benn v. Lambert, 283 F.3d 1040, 1061 (9th Cir. 2002). AMADO V. GONZALEZ 31 In United States v. Dupuy, 760 F.2d 1492, 1501-02 (9th Cir. 1985), we explained that when defense counsel was put on notice as to potential Brady material and given the opportunity to seek it out, then a defendant likely could not later claim that a Brady violation had occurred. No such explicit notice was provided here. See also United States v. Bond, 552 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir. 2009) (the government had given the defendant “the essential factual data to determine whether the witness’ testimony might be helpful”); United States v. Bracy, 67 F.3d 1421, 1428-29 (9th Cir. 1995) (no suppression where the federal government gave the defense two reports on a government witness’s criminal history and a printout from a National Crime Information Center computer search about that witness, but did not provide details about that witness’s criminal history and cooperation with law enforcement in two states). Brady is not so limited as the State argues. It is not likely that an interview of Hardy would have disclosed the facts that the State suppressed, as we discuss in the next section. We hold that the Court of Appeal’s requirement of due diligence was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. §2254(d).10 10 The Court of Appeal’s holding under California Penal Code § 1181(8), that Amado failed to show that the evidence was newly discovered and could not have been discovered with due diligence, raises the issue of an independent and adequate state ground for the decision, precluding federal habeas review. However, the State did not make this argument, and therefore waived the defense. See Vang v. Nevada, 329 F.3d 1069, 1073 (9th Cir. 2003). Further, the defense does not apply. First, it was not “firmly established” that California Penal Code 32 AMADO V. GONZALEZ