Opinion ID: 776874
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prior Proceedings on Appeal

Text: 100 One of appellants' claims on appeal was that the government had violated its disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), by not disclosing compelled statements taken from appellants' co-workers and other witnesses by the IAB during the course of their investigation into the Louima assault (the GO-15 statements). In order to fully evaluate these claims, we ordered the government to provide to appellants and this court, under seal and pursuant to a protective order, all of the GO-15 statements as well as any summaries of those statements or FBI reports of interviews of the GO-15 witnesses, and invited the parties to submit supplemental briefing. See United States v. Volpe, No. 00-1479 (2d Cir. June 28, 2001) (order requiring filing with the Court); United States v. Volpe, No. 00-1479 (2d Cir. July 6, 2001) (protective order requiring disclosure to defendants). 101 In their supplemental briefing, appellants argued that several of the newly disclosed statements contained exculpatory and impeachment material that was improperly suppressed by the government in violation of Brady. In addition, appellants produced an affidavit that had been obtained by defense counsel and was executed in April 2001 by retired police sergeant and IAB investigator Patrick Walsh stating that he was the first officer to interview Turetzky (before the recorded interview by IAB Captain Barry Fried, described above) and that during that unrecorded interview, 102 [i]n response to my inquiries concerning how Louima came to be in the bathroom, Turetzky said that he saw either... Wiese or ... Schwarz walking Louima toward the bathroom, but that Turetzky could not say which officer it was because he only saw them from the rear and Wiese and Schwarz look alike from that position. I went over Turetzky's observations with him numerous times, and he repeated each time that he could not tell whether the officer he saw walking Louima toward the bathroom was Wiese or Schwarz. 103 Ex. C of White Aff., ¶ 3 at 2. 104 Because none of the foregoing materials had been reviewed by the district court in deciding various Brady challenges raised there, and because the Walsh affidavit was likely to be the subject of a fresh motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, we remanded this case to the district court using the procedure we enunciated in United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19, 21-22 (2d Cir.1994), for the limited purpose of determining whether the Walsh affidavit, either alone or in combination with the other statements identified by the appellants, provided a basis to order a new trial either on the ground that the government failed to comply with Brady and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972), or on the ground of newly discovered evidence. See United States v. Schwarz, 259 F.3d 59, 65 (2d Cir.2001) (per curiam). 105 On remand, the district court held a hearing at which Turetzky, Walsh, and other investigators involved in the August 15, 1997 interviews of Turetzky testified. See United States v. Bruder, No. 98 CR 196, 2001 WL 1328461, at , - (E.D.N.Y. Sept.5, 2001). After reviewing all of the evidence, the district court found that Walsh's affidavit and his testimony at the hearing — to the effect that Turetzky told him that Louima's escort to the bathroom could have been either Wiese or Schwarz — were not credible. See id. at -. With respect to the other evidence identified by the appellants from the GO-15 statements and related materials produced pursuant to this court's order, the district court concluded that they are not Brady material because they are either inculpatory or immaterial. They would not have undermined any critical element of the prosecution's case, and were in fact consistent with that case. Id. at . 106 Based on the foregoing factual findings and credibility determinations, the district court held that appellants were not entitled to a new trial based either on the government's alleged Brady violations or on newly discovered evidence because the evidence produced at the hearing was not material, and, therefore, [t]here is no reasonable probability that [the new evidence] would have put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict. Id. at .