Opinion ID: 3066183
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prejudice – Reasonable Probability of a

Text: Different Result Hardy’s statements against Amado, in his testimony and as introduced through Detective Esquivel, were critical to Amado’s conviction. Hardy was the only person to testify that Amado brought a weapon to the scene. Without such testimony, it is doubtful that the jury would have found that Amado had the requisite criminal intent to aid and abet Johnson’s attack on the passengers on the bus. Indeed, without such evidence, Amado was just one member of a crowd. Mere presence in a crowd is not sufficient to render AMADO V. GONZALEZ 37 a person an accomplice. See People v. Salgado, 105 Cal. Rptr. 2d 373, 381–82 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001). At trial, the prosecution emphasized the critical nature of Hardy’s testimony. The prosecutor argued during summation that Hardy’s testimony on Amado’s carrying of a gun showed he was involved in the “significant amount of planning and talking” about the attack prior to the shooting. The prosecution emphasized that Hardy “specifically describes somebody that looks like Randall Amado, and then later picks that person out the next day.” Hardy was the one who “hear[d] people discussing the shooting” and called the police to set the case in motion. The prosecution told the jury that “the only reason” Hardy had to identify Amado was that he truly believed that Amado was “the guy who he saw on January the 16th, 1997, with a gun.” Would the prosecutor have argued with such conviction if Hardy had been impeached by his recent robbery conviction, his felony probation status with a motive to curry favor with the authorities, and his past membership in the Bloods, in frequent rivalry and conflict with members of the Crips? The prosecutor’s failure to discharge his Brady obligations enabled him to bolster Hardy’s credibility well beyond the credibility Hardy would have had if all the impeaching information had been made available to defense counsel and, by defense counsel, to the jury. Relying on California cases that broadly apply accomplice liability to gang members, the State contends that even if Hardy had not testified at all, Amado still could have been convicted. See, e.g., People v. Medina, 209 P.3d 105, 112 (Cal. 2009) (gang member involved in a fistfight responsible for shooting committed by another member of his gang); 38 AMADO V. GONZALEZ People v. Ayala, 105 Cal. Rptr. 3d 575, 585 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010) (gang member participates in murder when he rides with a fellow gang member to assist him in a beating of a rival gang); People v. Montes, 88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 482, 486 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999) (gang member who wielded a chain in a gang fight responsible for shooting committed by a fellow gang member). But without Hardy, the only evidence against Amado was Barner’s and Grisson’s testimony, which showed that, at best, Amado ran to the bus with many others who were not indicted. On such evidence, it is questionable if a jury could have convicted Amado of intending to facilitate murder. See Salgado, 105 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 381–82. We do not need to decide more than the question before us—whether the prosecutor’s violation of Brady was prejudicial. The standard is not whether there is sufficient evidence for conviction, but whether there is a “reasonable probability” that the outcome would have been different, meaning that “the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 435. Here, that standard is met. The impeaching evidence was strong enough to cast a cloud of doubt over Hardy’s testimony. With that cloud of doubt, the remaining evidence against Amado was weak. While Barner and Grisson both put Amado at the scene of the crime, neither of them testified that they saw him with a weapon or heard him make any statements, or heard others make statements, that suggested that Amado intended to participate in an assault. There was no proof that Amado had any discussions with Johnson and Pugh, or had a strong relationship with them that would have suggested that Johnson and Pugh had shared their plan with Amado. Hardy’s testimony that Amado carried a gun was AMADO V. GONZALEZ 39 influential to the jury in delivering a verdict against Amado, and it is reasonably probable that a jury, if made aware of the impeaching information against Hardy, would have given little, if any, credence to his testimony and would have returned a different verdict.