Opinion ID: 4562033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The X-Ray Was Suppressed

Text: To take the easiest question first, there is no question that the X-ray was suppressed. The government itself acknowledges “the prosecution’s inadvertent suppression of the X-ray of the victim’s head[.]” Brady does not require that the suppression be deliberate. Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281–82; see also Barton v. Warden, S. Ohio Corr. Facility, 786 F.3d 450, 465 (6th Cir. 2015). Nor does Brady require that the prosecutor’s office have had knowledge or possession of the material at the time of trial. See id. at 281. (In our case, the Commonwealth maintains that prosecutors denied the existence of the X-ray before the courts in 2013 because it never knew that the X-ray existed. The Commonwealth’s current attorney admitted at the evidentiary hearing, however, that this was only speculation. The Commonwealth admits on appeal that, “Phillips has established cause for the default in that the X-ray was not turned over to Phillips until an open records request was made.” As we have seen, “cause for the default” and the Brady suppression inquiry are the same. Brooks, 626 F.3d at 890–91. Therefore, the government has conceded the suppression element of the Brady test.