Opinion ID: 721475
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: McMillian States a Claim for a Brady Violation12

Text: 57 Brady protects an accused's due process right to a fair trial. Id. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1197. In Brady, the Supreme Court held 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, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. Id., 373 U.S. at 87-91, 83 S.Ct. at 1197-98. Brady requires disclosure of both exculpatory and impeachment evidence that is material. See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 153-54, 92 S.Ct. 763, 766, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). Evidence is material if its suppression undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 1566, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). 58 The Supreme Court has not explicitly addressed the disclosure duties of the police and other investigators under Brady. This court has noted, however, that investigators have no duty to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence to the defense. Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d at 1552. 13 The Constitution imposes the duty to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence to the defense on the prosecutor. Id. See also Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293, 299 (2nd Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 961, 113 S.Ct. 1387, 122 L.Ed.2d 762 (1993). 14 Investigators satisfy their obligations under Brady when they turn exculpatory and impeachment evidence over to the prosecutor. Walker, 974 F.2d at 299; Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 995 (7th Cir.1988). If they have reason to believe that the prosecutor already has the exculpatory and impeachment evidence, though, investigators have no duty to disclose the evidence. Kelly, 21 F.3d at 1552. 59 On appeal, neither Tate, Ikner, nor Benson disputes that an investigator has a duty under Brady to turn exculpatory and impeachment evidence over to the prosecutor. Nor do they dispute that the evidence that they allegedly suppressed was Brady material. Instead, Tate argues that he had reason to believe that the prosecutor knew about the exculpatory and impeachment evidence because Ikner, the prosecutor's investigator, knew of the evidence. Ikner and Benson argue that Brady did not require them to turn the evidence at issue over to the prosecutor in the circumstances of this case. 15 Ikner and Benson also argue that they could not have known, when they acquired the evidence, that the evidence would turn out to be exculpatory. 60 In arguing that he had reason to believe that the prosecutor was aware of the exculpatory and impeachment evidence, Tate relies on our decision in Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d 1544. Plaintiff in Kelly sued three police detectives under § 1983 for illegal detention, among other claims. Plaintiff had spent a year in jail on drug charges that eventually were dropped. He alleged that the detectives concealed from the prosecutor a lab report revealing that the substance on his possession was not cocaine. The district court denied the detectives' motion for summary judgment, holding that the detectives had a legal obligation to ensure that the judge or prosecutor was aware of all exculpatory evidence. Id. at 1549. We reversed, holding that the police have no duty to disclose exculpatory evidence when they have reason to believe that the prosecutor already is aware of the evidence. Id. at 1552. In Kelly, the detectives had reason to believe that the prosecutor was aware of the lab report because the report listed the district attorney's office as a recipient and the state lab had a practice of sending a copy directly to the prosecutor. Id. 61 Tate argues that he had even more reason to believe that the prosecutor was aware of the exculpatory and impeachment evidence than the detective in Kelly because Ikner, who was part of the prosecutor's office, knew of the evidence. We agree that a prosecutor's investigator's awareness of exculpatory or impeachment evidence usually will give other investigators reason to believe that the prosecutor is aware of the evidence. But Tate cannot avail himself of that argument, for he allegedly conspired with Ikner to withhold the evidence from the prosecutor. Thus, far from having reason to believe that the prosecutor was aware of the evidence, Tate allegedly knew that the prosecutor was not aware of the evidence. Kelly, therefore, is inapplicable to this case. 62 Ikner and Benson argue that they did not violate Brady because the exculpatory and impeachment evidence was acquired during the Pittman murder investigation rather than during the Morrison investigation. Thus, they argue, the evidence properly was left in the Pittman file rather than in the Morrison file. This argument is meritless. Ikner and Benson were investigating the Pittman murder contemporaneously with the Morrison murder. McMillian and Myers were charged in both murders. Regardless of which murder was being investigated at the precise moment the evidence was acquired, Ikner and Benson had an obligation under Brady to give evidence that was favorable to McMillian in the Morrison murder to the Morrison prosecutor. 16 63