Opinion ID: 4534794
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: newton’s brady claim fails

Text: ¶37 Next, Newton argues that his convictions should be reversed because the State violated the disclosure requirements of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), by refusing to conduct a forensic examination of M.F.’s cell phone. To establish a Brady violation, a defendant must show (1) that the prosecution suppressed evidence, (2) that the evidence is favorable to the accused, and (3) that the evidence is material to either guilt or to punishment. Id. Because Newton’s Brady claim fails under the first __________________________________________________________ 11 Newton argues in his reply brief that the sexual assault nurse examiner’s testimony about the bruises is undermined by a private investigator’s posttrial testimony that he interviewed people who told him that M.F. had sex with her boyfriend “out in the wilderness in the forest in some area” the day before the sexual assault. Newton argues that the sexual assault nurse examiner did not know about that alleged event and so her testimony about the bruises was ill informed. This alleged incident, however, was not in the trial testimony, and we do not consider it on appeal for the purposes of prejudice. And even if we were to consider it, it would not change the outcome of our analysis: Newton points to no testimony—even posttrial testimony—that M.F. sustained injuries during that alleged incident in the forest. 14 Cite at: 2020 UT 24 Opinion of the Court and third elements, we affirm the court of appeals without addressing the second element.
¶38 Newton argues that the prosecution had “a constitutional obligation to seek out any evidence on [M.F.’s] phone, regardless of whether it thought that the phone would contain anything of value” because “[p]rosecutors have an affirmative duty to seek out, analyze, i.e., look at the evidence solely within the hands of the prosecution team.” The court of appeals rejected this argument, holding that “the State did not commit a Brady violation when it did not independently conduct a forensic examination of [M.F.]’s cell phone.” State v. Newton, 2018 UT App 194, ¶ 34, 437 P.3d 429. ¶39 Under the first prong of the Brady analysis, a prosecutor must “disclose known, favorable evidence rising to a material level of importance.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 438 (1995) (emphasis added). This, in turn, requires a prosecutor to “learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in the case, including the police.” Id. at 437 (emphasis added). 12 But a prosecutor generally has no duty “to search for exculpatory evidence, conduct tests, or exhaustively pursue every __________________________________________________________ 12We note that some federal cases at first blush seem to impose a duty on a prosecutor to obtain “readily available” information even when the prosecutor is unaware of the information. But a deeper reading reveals that these cases all deal with the prosecutor’s duty to get information from other government actors or entities. See, e.g., United States v. Perdomo, 929 F.2d 967, 971 (3d Cir. 1991) (holding that prosecutor’s failure to check local Virgin Islands records for the criminal background of a key prosecution witness was a Brady violation because the information was readily available); United States v. Auten, 632 F.2d 478, 481 (5th Cir. 1980) (holding that the government had knowledge for purposes of Brady of the criminal record of a key witness when it chose not to run an FBI or NCIC check on the witness and the criminal record was readily available to it). They are not applicable here, however, because this case is about the prosecution’s duty to conduct tests on evidence—not its duty to search for evidence known to other government actors such as criminal records. 15 STATE v. NEWTON Opinion of the Court angle on a case.” State v. Shaffer, 725 P.2d 1301, 1305–06 (Utah 1986) (citation omitted) (holding that the cremation of the victim’s body before gunshot-residue tests were performed was not a Brady violation when “evidence of gunshot residue offered a ‘mere possibility’ of evidence favorable to the defendant”). 13 Such duty arises under Brady only when “the exculpatory value of untested . . . evidence” is “apparent.” State v. Bakalov, 1999 UT 45, ¶¶ 49–50, 979 P.2d 799 (holding that there was no Brady violation when the State did not test a semen sample); see also Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 56–58 (1988) (holding that the police’s failure to perform tests on semen samples did not violate the Due Process Clause, absent bad faith); People ex rel. Gallagher v. Dist. Court In & For Arapahoe Cty., 656 P.2d 1287, 1291–92 (Colo. 1983) (holding that the police’s failure to conduct a trace-metal test on victim’s hands before burial was a suppression of evidence when it was “implausible” that the “test had no value”). ¶40 The State had no duty under Brady to conduct a forensic examination of M.F.’s cell phone. Nothing indicates that the prosecution or another government actor knew of any favorable, material evidence that would be revealed by conducting a forensic examination of the cell phone. Instead, “this evidence was simply an avenue of investigation that might have led in any number of directions.” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 56 n.. Indeed, the prosecutor testified at a posttrial hearing that he “had no idea what was on the phone at all, one way or the other,” and that he “had no reason to believe there was anything relevant on the phone.” Although Newton has made the bald assertion that “the prosecutor intentionally stuck his head in the sand,” he has not provided evidence that the exculpatory value of testing the cell __________________________________________________________ 13 See also Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 59 (1988) (“[T]he police do not have a constitutional duty to perform any particular tests.”); State v. Rhodes, 543 P.2d 1129, 1133 (Ariz. 1975) (holding that failure to take fingerprints from certain areas of or items in a crime scene was not a Brady violation); People ex rel. Gallagher v. Dist. Court In & For Arapahoe Cty., 656 P.2d 1287, 1291 (Colo. 1983) (“[P]olice investigators have no general duty to search out possible exculpatory evidence or to perform tests to determine marginally relevant facts that, with the benefit of hindsight, a defendant might speculate would have been of possible value to support his defense against a criminal charge.”). 16 Cite at: 2020 UT 24 Opinion of the Court phone—if there was any—was apparent. Thus the State did not violate Brady when it did not complete a forensic examination of the cell phone.
¶41 Newton also argues that the evidence discovered through the posttrial forensic examination of the phone was material. We disagree. And so, in addition to failing on the suppression prong, Newton’s Brady claim independently fails on the materiality prong. ¶42 Evidence is material for the purposes of Brady “only if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682 (1985). “A ‘reasonable probability’ of a different result is one in which the suppressed evidence undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.” Turner v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1885, 1893 (2017) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). And therefore “[t]he possibility that [the evidence] could have exculpated [the defendant] if . . . tested is not enough to satisfy the standard of constitutional materiality . . . . ” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 56 n.. We determine the materiality by evaluating “the withheld evidence in the context of the entire record.” Turner, 137 S. Ct. at 1893 (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). ¶43 Newton makes a single argument about the cell-phone evidence’s materiality. He says that the fact “that M.F. entered Newton as a contact in her phone the morning of the alleged incident” would have contradicted “M.F.’s testimony that Newton was ‘weird and creepy,’ and that she never flirted with him, told him she hated him, and had a boyfriend of her own.” The evidence of the contact entry, contends Newton, “would have allowed counsel to thoroughly cross-examine M.F. as to why, where she had a boyfriend, she would want Newton’s contact information.” ¶44 The court of appeals held that the district court did not err when it determined that the evidence collected from M.F.’s cell phone was not material. Newton, 2018 UT App 194, ¶¶ 35–37. In so doing, it implicitly endorsed the district court’s view that the evidence “could show only that Victim had ‘no bias’ against Newton prior to the rape, and it corroborated Victim’s account that her friends unsuccessfully attempted to contact her during the incident.” Id. ¶ 36. It also noted that M.F. “testified on direct 17 STATE v. NEWTON Petersen, J., concurring and cross-examination that after telling Newton that she thought he was ‘weird and creepy,’ ‘he was nice after that.’” Id. ¶ 37. And Newton did not “explain how entering his phone number before the rape would have ‘provided circumstantial evidence of consent.’” Id. ¶45 We agree with the court of appeals. Newton has failed to show any likelihood that a pretrial examination of the cell phone would have affected the outcome of his trial. Thus the evidence learned from the forensic examination of the cell phone was not material. It was consistent with M.F.’s testimony that she was friendly with Newton before he attacked her. As the court of appeals acknowledged, even though M.F. described her initial impression of Newton as “weird and creepy,” she also said that “he was nice after that.” Id. And as the State notes, the jury also heard other evidence of M.F.’s attitude toward Newton—i.e., her acceptance of his invitation to ride alone with him at 3:00 a.m. to Subway and video footage showing her with Newton and seemingly happy at Subway. Neither did the evidence of the contact entry impeach M.F.’s testimony that she did not flirt with Newton and that she had a boyfriend. The State summed it up well: “One may note another’s contact information for any number of reasons. The significance of the evidence was therefore ambiguous at best.” ¶46 In the end, the cell-phone evidence “adds nothing to [Newton]’s case and would not have raised a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.” State v. Shabata, 678 P.2d 785, 788 (Utah 1984). The cell-phone evidence was thus not material, and the State did not violate Brady by not conducting a forensic examination on the cell phone.