Court Opinion

ID: 9423355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:07:15.179205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:38.635122
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Fortas,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the Court’s judgment in this immensely troubling case, but I do so for the reasons which led the Montgomery County Circuit Court to order a new trial.
On petitioners’ motion for post-conviction relief, Judge Moorman, of the Circuit Court sustained the claim that *97the prosecution had violated their federally protected right to due process of law when it failed to disclose to defense counsel evidence, known to the prosecution, concerning two incidents which occurred about one month after the crime charged to them and four months prior to trial. These incidents were: (1) the prosecutrix’ sexual encounter with two boys at a party, followed by the filing and eventual dropping of a rape charge;-and (2) her attempted suicide within hours of the foregoing incident and her ensuing hospitalization for psychiatric examination. The Circuit Court ruled that this information could “be reasonably considered admissible and useful to the defense,” that in consequence the prosecution was under a duty to disclose, and that its omission to do so required a new trial.
The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed. It held that, even if admissible, the evidence in question was insufficiently “exculpatory” to warrant a new trial. The attempted suicide was shunted aside on thé ground that its “probative value” was not such as to affect either the competence or credibility of the prosecutrix as a witness. Both it and the rape claim were disposed of on the assertion that “specific acts of misconduct” are not admissible to impeach credibility, and that “the only possible use of the facts surrounding the alleged rape claim would be for purposes of showing the unchastity of the prosecutrix, a fact that was already known to the defense at the time of the rape trial.”
Judges Oppenheimer and Hammond dissented. They noted that the alleged rape claim and its abandonment might well have been useful in corroborating the petitioners’ account of what happened, that no Maryland evidentiary rule rendered inadmissible in a rape prosecution evidence that the prosecutrix suffered from a mental or emotional disturbance short of “insanity,” and that in any event these bits of information might have fur*98nished the defense with important leads to other and more potent evidence. The dissenters asserted that the majority erroneously, substituted its appraisal of the weight to be. attached to the suppressed evidence for a jury’s possible evaluation, and that it erred in applying too stringent a test of admissibility.
I do not agree that the State may be excused from its duty to disclose material facts known to it prior to trial solely because of a conclusion that they would not be admissible at trial.1 The State’s obligation is not to convict, but to see that, so far as possible, truth emerges. This is also the ultimate statement of its responsibility to provide a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Eourteenth Amendment. No respectable interest of the; State is served by its concealment of information which is material, generously conceived, to the case, including all possible defenses.
This is not to say that convictions ought to be reversed on the ground that information merely repetitious, cumulative, or embellishing of facts otherwise known to the defense or presented to the court, or without importance to the defense for purposes of the preparation of the case or for trial was not disclosed to defense counsel. It is not to say that the State has an obligation to communicate preliminary, challenged, or speculative information. But this is not that case. Petitioners were on trial for their lives. The information was specific, factual, and concrete, although its implications may be highly debatable. The charge was rape, and, although the circumstances of this case seem to negate the possibility of *99consent, the information which the State withhéld was directly related to that defense. Petitioners’ fate turned on whether the jury believed their story that the prosecu-trix had consented, rather than her claim that she had been raped. In this context, it was a violation of due process of law for the prosecution to withhold evidence that a month after the crime of which petitioners were accused the prosecutrix had intercourse with two men in circumstances suggesting consent on her part, and that she told a policeman — but later retracted the charge — that they had raped her. The defense should have been advised of her suicide attempt and commitment for psychiatric observation, for even if these should be construed as merely products of the savage mistreatment of the girl by petitioners, rather than as indicating a question as to the girl’s credibility, the defense was entitled to know.
The story of the prosecutrix is a tragic one. But our total lack of sympathy for the kind of physical assault which is involved here may not lead us to condone state suppression of information which might be useful to thé defense.
With regret but under compulsion of the nature and impact of the error committed, I would vacate the judgment of conviction and require the case to be retried. In view of the conclusions of my Brethren, however, I concur in the judgment of the Court sending this case back to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration.
Addendum: My Brother Harlan has addressed a section of his dissent to my concurring opinion. This discloses a basic difference between us with respect to the State’s responsibility under the fair-trial requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment. I believe that deliberate concealment and nondisclosure by the State are not to be distinguished in principle from misrepresentation. *100This Court so held in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). Mr. Justice Harlan concedes that the State may not knowingly use perjured testimony or allow it to remain uncorrected. He asserts that this satisfies “in full” the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment, and suggests that an extension of these principles is neither necessary nor advisable. This suggests that the State is never obligated to take the initiative to disclose evidence unless its nature is such as to impeach evidence that the State has offered. I assume that Mr. Justice Harlan would apply this principle, even though the information might, in the hands of defense counsel, spell the difference between death and exoneration of the defendant. I cannot subscribe to this. A criminal trial is not a game in which the State’s function is to outwit and entrap its quarry. The State’s pursuit is justice, not a victim. If it has in its exclusive possession specific, concrete evidence which is not merely cumulative or embellishing and which may exonerate the defendant or be of material importance to the defense — regardless of whether it relates to testimony which the State has caused to be given at the,trial — the State is obliged to bring it to the attention of the court and the defense. For example, let us assume that the State possesses information that blood was found on the victim, and that this blood is of a type which does not match that of the accused or of the victim. Let, us assume that no related testimony was offered by the State. I understand my Brother Harlan’s comments to mean that he would not require the State to .disclose this information. He would apparently regard Miller v. Pate, ante, p. 1, as the outer limit of the State’s duty. There the prosecution dramatically used a pair of shorts, misrepresented as saturated with blood, to secure a conviction. I cannot acquiesce that this is the end of the State’s duty under the Constitution. Nondisclosure — deliberate withhold*101ing — of important information of the type described, which is in the exclusive possession of the State is, in my judgment, not reconcilable with the concept of a fair trial and with the Due Process Clause. . I can readily see that differences of opinion might exist as to whether the nature of particular evidence is such that nondisclosure of it should result in setting aside a conviction. But I do not. accept the notion that only where the effect of withholding evidence is to allow perjured testimony to stand uncorrected is there a duty to disclose. In my view, a supportable conviction requires something more than that the State did not lie. It implies that the prosecution has been fair and honest and that the State has disclosed 'all information known to it which may have a crucial or important effect on the outcome.
The newly amended Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure has little to do with the matter now before the Court. On its face, the Rule is directed to the relatively limited problem of pretrial discovery and inspection in the federal courts. Whethér Rule 16 is adequate even for its purposes is the subject of differences of opinion. But it does not purport to exhaust the prosecution’s duty. Mr. Justice Harlan apparently finds no inconsistency between proscription of the prosecution’s knowing use or acquiescence in the use of perjured testimony2 and Rule 16’s silence on that subject. I find none in the requirement, recognized by this Court in Brady v. Maryland, supra, that the State apprise the defendant of information of the sort described herein, and the Rule’s omission of such a requirement. My point relates, not to the defendant’s discovery of the prosecution’s case for purposes of preparation or avoidance of surprise, which is dealt with in Rule 16, but with, the State’s constitutional duty, as I see it, voluntarily to *102disclose material in its exclusive possession which is exon-erative or helpful to the defense — which the State will not affirmatively use to prove guilt — and which it should not conceal. Brady involved neither the knowing use of perjured testimony nor acquiescence in its use. Nevertheless, both The Maryland Court of Appeals and this Court concluded that the prosecutor’s conduct in withholding information material to guilt or punishment, information which defense counsel had unsuccessfully requested, violated due process. Although this Court included in its statement of the controlling principle a reference to counsel’s request — “We now hold 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. . . .”3-^ — I see no reason to make the result turn on the adventitious circumstance of a request. If the defense does not know of the existence of -the evidence, it may- not be able to request its production. A murder trial — indeed any criminal proceeding — is not a sporting event.

 In Griffin v. United States, 336 U. S. 704, 707-709 (1949), this Court remanded a case for reconsideration of a ruling that certain evidence withheld by the prosecution was inadmissible. On remand, . a new rule of admissibility was formulated and a new trial ordered. Griffin v. United States, 87 U. S. App. D. C. 172, 183 F. 2d 990 (1950).

 Alcorta v. Texas, 355 U. S. 28 (1957); Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264 (1959); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 (1935).

 373 U. S., at 87.