Court Opinion

ID: 9751433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:26:51.903939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:14.310211
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
CATHELL, J.
in which WILNER, J., joins
I respectfully dissent. The majority’s opinion in this third examination of Conyer’s conviction (Conyers III, I suppose) is a result looking for justification that, in actuality, does not exist.
The majority’s reversal is based solely on the Brady1 issue. It does not address the remaining issues (other than those relating to waiver with which I do not take issue). The majority states:
“[W]e must determine whether (1) the State suppressed or withheld evidence that was (2) favorable to the Petitioner and (3) whether the suppressed evidence was material.”
I agree that if the evidence of Johnson’s attempts to obtain favorable treatment in return for his testimony had been suppressed by the State, it was both favorable to the petitioner and material. The problem is, regardless of the majority’s massive dumping of legal authority in its opinion and the discussion of perjury by the majority in a footnote, that the evidence was not suppressed or withheld in the first instance.
I have no dispute about the application of Brady. The extensive discussion of that case and its progeny in the majority’s opinion serves primarily to obfuscate the weakness of its factual determination in the case. The majority’s reversal is based not upon the law but upon its interpretation of the facts.
*616What is clear is that the purpose of the whole line of Brady cases is to insure that the trier of fact has before it any material impeachment (in this case) evidence. The impeachment evidence in this case was that Johnson, the witness at issue, received benefits for his testimony by way of a favorable plea bargain in respect to unrelated charges he was facing.
The majority states:
“Here, while Petitioner and the jury were aware of the existence of Johnson’s plea agreement in return for his testimony, the State withheld arguably related circumstances leading up to its consummation, namely, that Johnson, indeed, requested a favor, and that he refused to sign his written statement absent such a commitment.”
The favor Johnson requested was the plea agreement he received from the State and that plea agreement was made known to the jury. It is almost, I would suggest, universally understood that plea bargaining constitutes favors. Additionally, the very use of the general term “bargain” implies a give and take procedure where things are withheld and other things offered; some are accepted, some are rejected. When the jury was informed of the plea agreement, it, impliedly, was informed that a give and take process for Johnson’s testimony had been undertaken and been consummated.
Additionally, the majority’s reasoning is, in my view, sophistic in nature. Parsed of extraneous material, the majority is holding that because the detective’s and Johnson’s testimony about their prior communications was the type of testimony that could tend to obscure the existence of a beneficial plea bargain for Johnson on his unrelated charges, the case must be reversed under Brady, even though the beneficial plea bargain was, in fact, fully disclosed to the jury. The jury was fully apprised of the possible motive of Johnson to fabricate his testimony.
The purpose of the Brady holding (as applied in the impeachment context) is to insure that the jury is made aware of the motive for fabrication on the part of the witness, not to mandate that every nuance of the process from which the *617motive to fabricate originates be remembered and/or disclosed.
Had Johnson’s plea bargain not been disclosed to the jury, the dictates of the Brady line of cases would not have been met and I would join the majority. In my view, however, the requirements of Brady were met.
The majority does not address the other issues. Nonetheless, were I writing for the majority of the Court, I would affirm on all issues presented.
Judge WILNER has authorized me to state that he joins in this dissent.

. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).