Opinion ID: 1031001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Favorability of the Items Allegedly Suppressed.

Text: In order to establish a Brady violation, the evidence suppressed by the state must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is impeaching. Id. at 282, 119 S.Ct. 1936. As noted previously, the district court concluded that Walker failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the items allegedly withheld were favorable to Walker's defense. The court explained that [t]he evidence at issue does not affirmatively show that Bianca told police she only heard the shooter's voice and did not see him. Indeed, Hickman's notes provide a physical description of the shooter given by Bianca. Moreover, the evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing shows that Bianca was hysterical and emotionally distraught when interviewed by detectives on the night of her father's murder. She has no independent recollection regarding what she told the detectives . . . Based on the evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing, had [Walker's] defense counsel attempted to use the evidence at issue to impeach Bianca's testimony at trial the effect would have been negligible. J.A. 1120-21. Walker contends that the district court applied the wrong legal standard in determining whether the evidence at issue was favorable. Specifically, Walker argues that the district court improperly conflated the issue of whether the alleged undisclosed evidence was favorable with the separate issue of whether it was material in light of the record as a whole. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 451, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (recognizing that the favorable tendency of a given piece of evidence should be assessed without regard to the weight of the evidence as a whole); Strickler, 527 U.S. at 282, 119 S.Ct. 1936 (concluding that the impeaching character of the evidence in question was apparent from the contrast between the witness's trial testimony and the undisclosed evidence). It is somewhat unclear whether the district court based its conclusion on the effect of the alleged Brady documents on the trial as a whole in light all the evidence, as opposed to the impeachment character of the alleged Brady documents, if any. During the evidentiary hearing, Bianca affirmed the accuracy of her trial testimony that she heard the front door being forced open, saw Walker enter and then saw him shoot her father. She emphatically rejected the suggestion that she might have told officers that she recognized the shooter by voice, not sight, because she did see him. J.A. 890. Her testimony, however, may go to the weight of the so-called impeachment evidence rather than its tendency to contradict the Commonwealth's star witness. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 451, 115 S.Ct. 1555. Because the district court's decision can easily be affirmed on its disposition of the suppression and materiality Brady elements, however, we need not determine whether the district court properly concluded that Walker failed to establish that the evidence was favorable.