Court Opinion

ID: 9705365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:04:24.683042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:10.434649
License: Public Domain

RUIZ, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court did not err in deciding that non-disclosure of a complaint filed with the Citizens’ Complaint Review Board and a statement given to the police itself concerning serious misconduct and physical abuse by the officers involved in the sting operation and during its immediate aftermath, was not a Brady1 violation because disclosure “would not have made a different result reasonably probable.” See Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 441, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995). First, I disagree with the majority’s reasoning that a deferential standard, rather than a rigorous independent review, may be permissible; second, in assessing the materiality of the withheld documents, the majority’s analysis does not apply the proper prejudice standard, whether the “favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the outcome,” Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 290, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999) (quoting Kyles, 514 U.S. at 435, 115 S.Ct. 1555), to the evidence in this case. As I conclude that the documents were in the possession of the government for Brady purposes (a point the majority assumes, but does not decide), I would reverse Farley’s conviction.2
I.
Standard of Review
An appellate court reviewing a determination whether there has been a Brady violation conducts an independent, de novo review of the withheld evidence in the context of the evidence at trial. No other conclusion can be reached from the Supreme Court’s opinions in Kyles, Bagley,3 Wood,4, or Strickler, all of which exhaustively review the evidence, without expressing a deferential standard or, in fact, affording any deference to the lower courts’ determinations. See, e.g., Kyles, 514 U.S. at 455, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (“[M]y independent review of the case left me with the same degree of doubt about the petitioner’s guilt”) (Stevens, J., concurring, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer). This is consistent with the origin of the Brady materiality test, which is derived from the prejudice prong for ineffective assistance of counsel — an inquiry which the Court has held presents a mixed question of law and fact. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), cited in Bagley, supra note 3, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375. Although the majority opinion states it is applying an independent review in this case, it also suggests, relying on Davies v. United States, 476 A.2d 658 (D.C.1984), that a standard deferential to the trial court’s ruling may be permissible, even if it limits our review “to a determination of whether that decision is reasonable,” and precludes an independent review. Id. at 661.5 Notwithstanding the *234rule in M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310 (D.C.1971), we must conform our law to controlling Supreme Court precedent on constitutional matters.6 Therefore, I turn to an independent review of the Brady issue presented by this appeal.
II.
Statement of the Case
We consider this appeal for a second time, after having remanded the record to the trial court for a hearing and determination whether a witness’s complaint to the Citizens Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”) was Brady material and, if so, whether had it been disclosed to the defense, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different. See Farley v. United States, 694 A.2d 887, 890 (D.C.1997).
The facts relevant to the Brady issue are summarized in our first opinion in this appeal in which we remanded the record to the trial court. See id. at 888. Noting that the government’s obligation to disclose information under Brady extends “not only to the prosecutor, but the Government as a whole, including its investigative agencies,” id. at 889 (quoting Martinez v. Wainwright, 621 F.2d 184, 187 n. 4 (5th Cir.1980) and United States v. Bryant, 142 U.S.App. D.C. 132, 140, 439 F.2d 642, 650 (1971)), we concluded that the record was too sparse to determine whether the exculpatory information Farley claimed the government was obligated to disclose was Brady material. Specifically, we questioned whether a complaint filed by Dennis Miles with the CCRB was in the possession of the government, or should have been imputed to it for Brady purposes, as the regulations provided for notice to at least the police officer identified in the complaint (and perhaps also to the United State Attorney’s Office, depending on whether the CCRB finds a “probability” that there has been criminal misconduct). See Farley, 694 A.2d at 890 & nn. 12 & 13. Miles’ CCRB complaint, which was made ten days after the drug buy-bust operation resulting in Farley’s conviction,7 detailed abusive treatment and *235threats by police officers against Miles, a paraplegic, after the police chased Farley into and through Miles’ apartment the night of the drug buy-bust and, again, when they interviewed him several days later. The CCRB complaint described several officers and identified one, Officer Zerega, by name.
On remand, the trial court held a hearing and determined that the government had failed to disclose three documents which, in the view of the trial court, potentially were Brady material: “(1) Miles’[s] two-page statement of January 19, 1992, given to Detective Thomas A. Page [on the night of the incident],8 (2) Miles’fs] January 29, 1992, CCRB [C]omplaint, and (3) a tape recording of an interview Miles had with police officers on January 30, 1992, in connection with their investigation of his CCRB [Cjomplaint.”9 The trial court stated that “[e]ach statement, if believed, discloses police misconduct, possibly including misconduct on the part of the police officers who identified Farley at this trial.” The reports, the trial court continued, could have “provided a good faith basis” for cross examination of the police officers for bias which, if successful, “might have impugned these witnesses’ credibility, an attribute upon which their identification and other testimony depended.” Nonetheless, the trial court concluded, quoting Kyles, 514 U.S. at 441, 115 S.Ct. 1555, that “disclosure of this material ‘would [not] have made a different result reasonably probable.’” The trial court based its conclusion from having been “on the spot” and having confidence that “whatever bias that might have been shown, on the part of the police in general or the identifying witnesses in particular, such bias would not have undermined the force of the police officers’ identifications and the strong corroborating evidence.”10 The trial court also explained that one of Miles’s statements in his tape-recorded interview with the police concerning his CCRB complaint, “[w]hile not completely consistent with the testimony of police officers,” was not consistent with Miles’s statement in his CCRB complaint concerning the place from which he saw the police recover the suspect’s coat in Miles’s apartment.11
III.
Analysis
I agree with the trial court’s assessment that the three documents it identified and considered were in the possession of the government, if material, should have been disclosed to the defense under Brady.12 *236Although the trial court’s “on the spot” views of the evidence in a case are not something we can usually better from our appellate perch, the determination whether the required prejudice has been shown is ultimately a conclusion of law that constitutional error has occurred. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 422, 115 S.Ct. 1555. As already discussed, that is a conclusion an appellate court can reach only after conducting a rigorous and independent review of the withheld material in the context of the trial. After conducting such a review of the record in this case, I conclude that because the disclosure of the withheld materials would have made a different result reasonably probable, or, put another way, that the nondisclosure undermines confidence in the verdict, there has been a Brady violation and reversal is required. Once a reviewing court has found Brady constitutional error, there is no further harmless error review. See id. at 435, 115 S.Ct. 1555.

A. Were the undisclosed documents in the possession of the government?

When we remanded the record, we had thought that the main — and potentially difficult — question was whether Miles’ complaint to the CCRB should be deemed to be in the “possession” of the government for Brady purposes. See Farley, 694 A.2d at 890. As it turns out, we need not decide the question we previewed in our remand order, for as is clear from documents newly produced for the record on remand, the government was in fact on notice early on of Miles’ complaint of police misconduct. On the night of the incident, Miles gave a statement to Detective Thomas A. Page at the police’s Fifth District in which he claimed that an officer “hit me [on] my head, the Officer, he stomped my head, one kicked me in my head and they beat me in my stomach, they kicked me in my head.”13 Further, on February 3, 1992 (two months before the pretrial motions hearing and three months before Farley’s trial), Alfreda Davis Porter, Executive Director of the CCRB, wrote to Officer Zerega enclosing a copy of Miles’ CCRB complaint, which identified Officer Zerega by name. See 6A DCMR § 2105.3; Farley, 694 A.2d at 890 & n. 12 (noting that regulations require CCRB to transmit copy of non-frivolous complaints “to the subject police officer”). We noted the importance of what the police knew because “pursuant to Kyles, the government is responsible for knowing what the police know.” Farley, 694 A.2d at 890. Although it was Officer Zerega, as the target of the investigation, and not the police department, who received the copy of Miles’s CCRB complaint, in this case the government had actual notice of Miles’s complaint of police misconduct from the statement he gave to Detective Page the night of the incident. Based on that information, the government had a “duty to search.” See United States v. Brooks, 296 U.S.App. D.C. 219, 222, 966 F.2d 1500, 1503 (1992) (noting that a duty to search may flow from the “nature of the files” or “[w]here the file’s link to the case is less clear, the court must also consider whether there was enough of a prospect of exculpatory materials to warrant a search”); Joseph, 996 F.2d at 39 (“[w]e consider whether the prosecutor knew or should have known of the [Brady] materials even though they have developed in another case.”); United States v. Deutsch, 475 F.2d 55, 57 (5th Cir.1973) (requiring disclosure of possible adverse information in the personnel file of a post office employee who testified that defendants sought to bribe him). Given the nature of *237Miles’s complaint to Detective Page, the government’s failure to locate the CCRB complaint and the ensuing tape-recorded interview by the CCRB officer amounted to “failure to turn over an easily turned rock.” Brooks, 296 U.S.App. D.C. at 222, 966 F.2d at 1503.14 It is the government’s responsibility to establish such procedures as may be necessary to identify and preserve Brady material. See Bryant, 142 U.S.App. D.C. at 142, 439 F.2d at 662.15
The record on remand also includes the affidavit of David E. Mills, the Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted Farley’s trial, in which he states that “he was [not] informed that a CCRB complaint had been filed against one of my officer witnesses” and that “I do not recall being told during my tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office that any of the witnesses in [Farley’s] case had been mistreated by the police.” As the Supreme Court has made clear, however, “the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in the case, including the police.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555. The reason for placing this burden on the individual prosecutor, as the Court explained, is that:
[T]he prosecutor has the means to discharge the government’s Brady responsibility if he will, any argument for excusing a prosecutor from disclosing what he does not happen to know about boils down to a plea to substitute the police for the prosecutor, and even for the courts themselves, as the final arbiters of the government’s obligation to ensure fair trials.
Id. at 438, 115 S.Ct. 1555.
The record on remand also contains the affidavit of Sherri L. Berthrong, Chief of the Grand Jury Intake Section of the Office of the United States Attorney, in which she states that she received Miles’ complaint from the CCRB on July 13, 1992. See 6A DCMR § 2105.7; Farley, 694 A.2d at 890 n. 13 (noting that where the CCRB finds “any probability” of criminal misconduct, “the Board shall refer the complaint to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.”). According to the affidavit, Ms. Berthrong sent the complaint to the Metropolitan Police Department for investigation. Based upon the MPD’s investigation, the United States Attorney’s office “declined” to prosecute on October 26, 1992. Farley was tried in May 1992, but was not sentenced until August of that year. Although the United States Attorney’s Office did not have copy of the CCRB complaint directed to its attention until after trial, it undisputedly had received it prior to Farley’s sentencing. As late as the first oral argument before this court in 1997, however, the government maintained that it had no written documentation of Miles’s complaint of police misconduct.16
*238Having these various statements, the government was under an obligation to disclose them to the defense. Initially, the Supreme Court considered it a violation of due process if the government failed to disclose “evidence favorable to an accused upon request ... irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194. In Bagley, the Court expanded on the “upon request” language, noting that “where the defense makes a specific request and the prosecutor fails to disclose responsive evidence .... the standard might be more lenient than in the situation in which the defense makes no request or only a general request.” 473 U.S. at 681, 105 S.Ct. 3375 (citing United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 106, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976) (“When the prosecutor receives a specific and relevant request, the failure to make any response is seldom, if ever, excusable.”)). In Kyles, the Court reiterated what it had said in Bagley, that “regardless of request, favorable evidence is material, and constitutional error results from its suppression by the government, ‘if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.’” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 433, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (quoting Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375).
Here, the defense made a fairly specific request. See Farley, 694 A.2d at 889 n. 7 (noting that “Farley filed a Motion to Compel Discovery requesting the identity of the officer and/or officers that were provided with exculpatory information by David Miles.”) In its opposition to the Motion to Compel Discovery, the government responded that it had already provided Miles’ name and address and the substance of his statements to the police officers who questioned him in his apartment on the night of the incident, but made no mention whatsoever of the statements Miles gave to the police at the Fifth District that same night, recorded by Detective Page, that Miles was beaten by the same officers who rushed into his apartment.17 The record overwhelmingly supports that the government had in its possession, and failed to disclose, material favorable to the defense, notwithstanding that the government’s attention should have been alerted to its existence by the defense’s request. See Brooks, 296 U.S.App. D.C. at 222, 966 F.2d at 1503.

B. Did the nondisclosure require reversal?

Whether there is a Brady violation depends on whether there is a “reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 3375. This inquiry has more recently been refined by the Supreme Court in Kyles: “The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the *239evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (emphasis added).
In making such a determination, the starting point must be the withheld evidence. In addition to the statement Miles gave the police on the night of the incident, Miles’s complaint to the CCRB is a detailed six-page document that sets out the police officers’ conduct when they first came into his apartment running after the suspect the night of the incident and then, a few days later, when they returned to question Miles a second time. On the first occasion, according to Miles, the officers came to his apartment with guns drawn, threw him on the floor and, when Miles could not answer the officers’ questions (“where did the fat guy go”?), repeatedly “punched” and “stomped [him] in the head.” The beating stopped when, in response to an order “to get up,” Miles “told them that I couldn’t because I’m handicapped (paraplegic).” Miles alleges that one of the officers threatened that he would plant evidence in Miles’s apartment, a brown bag with drug paraphernalia that had been found in his girlfriend’s purse. According to Miles, the officers “went outside the back of my place where my kitchen window is and brought a man’s coat and pistol. They said that they would charge me with all of it, including the drugs they found in the coat. I never heard or saw anyone come through my place.” A few days later, two investigators returned to Miles’s apartment. One of the officers showed Miles a search warrant, which was unsigned. When Miles told the officers that they could search “anytime without one,” the answer he received was that “when we [the police] come back with the search warrant we’re going to kick your door down and tear your property up. That’s how we want to do it.”
As the majority recognizes, the undisclosed material could have been used by the defense to impeach the police officers who stormed Miles’s apartment for bias, thereby undermining their credibility. Bagley makes clear that “impeachment evidence ... as well as exculpatory evidence ... falls within the Brady rule.” 473 U.S. at 676, 105 S.Ct. 3375. The officers’ credibility was of utmost importance in this case because it was principally their testimony that identified Farley as the seller caught in the police buy-bust drug operation. Their identification was subject to question because the officers who participated in the undercover operation initially were unable to identify Farley from a photo array presented on the night of the incident; they identified him from a different photo array some ten days later.
I disagree with the majority’s characterization that the officers’ motivation was “to correctly identify the person” who assaulted one of the officers in the undercover operation. That is certainly one possible interpretation of the officers’ motivation; but another possible interpretation is that the officers, being concerned about the consequences of their abusive treatment of a paraplegic, would have felt compelled to produce a suspect to justify their actions or hide some other questionable practice that they employed in their investigation of the case. Whichever motivation, it was for the jury, not a reviewing court, to decide. Similarly, the majority notes that there has been no showing that the officers who testified at trial knew of Miles’s complaint. This formulation begs the issue. If the jury had been told of Miles’s statements and believed Miles’s version, the officers would have known what happened because they were there; they would not have needed to be told. Even if the jury believed that Miles’s complaint was unfounded or exaggerated, the jury also could have believed that its existence might have influenced the officers’ testimony because Detective Page, who took Miles’s complaint at the police station the night of the incident, would have mentioned to his colleagues who participated in *240the operation that they were being accused of serious misconduct.
The majority makes much of the fact that Miles’s complaint did not identify any of the officers who testified in Farley’s trial. As already noted, see supra note 18, however, while it is correct to say that the complaint to the CCRB did not identify by name any of the officers who testified in Farley’s trial, it did identify another officer by name (Zerega) and others by appearance. The government chose not to call Officer Zerega as a witness. It is for the jury, not this court, to determine whether any of the officers who testified at trial were described in the complaint. As the trial court expressly recognized in its Remand Memorandum, the withheld documents, if believed, discloses police misconduct, “possibly including misconduct on the part of the police officers who identified Farley at his trial.”18
The physical evidence provided by the contents in the pocket of the coat recovered by the police, although certainly probative, also was subject to challenge. Armed with Miles’s statements that he did not see anyone run through his apartment and that the police brought the coat “from outside” and “from the kitchen,”19 competent defense counsel could have presented to the jury an argument that lessened the importance of the nexus between Farley and the coat pocket’s contents by casting doubt as to the place where the coat was found by the police and emphasizing that Farley’s coat had been stolen earlier in the day.20 During the hearing on remand, the government conceded that Miles’s statement that the coat was brought in from the outside “would have to be turned over” under Brady.
The majority agrees with the trial court’s analysis centered on its determination that disclosure of the withheld material would not have made a different result reasonably probable because even if bias were shown by the police generally or the identifying officers in particular, “such bias would not have undermined the force of •the police officers’ identifications and the strong corroborating evidence provided by the items identifying Farley found in the coat.” As already noted, neither the police officers’ identifications nor the physical evidence (the contents of the coat pockets) were as unassailable as the majority suggests. They surely would have been weakened by impeachment with Miles’s statements.
Moreover, assessing the strength of the government’s case is not the end of the required inquiry. As the Supreme Court made clear in Kyles, quite apart from the strength of the government’s case, a Brady violation is established by “showing 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 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555. A reviewing court has to assume (absent evidence to the contrary and there is none here) that, if the defense had known about the substance of Miles’s complaints of police misconduct, his statements that he did not see anyone run *241through his apartment and his version concerning the coat that differed somewhat from that of the police, competent defense counsel would have found Miles and presented his testimony at trial. Farley, 694 A.2d at 889 n. 9. Miles’s testimony, if believed, would have seriously impeached not only the officers’ testimony at trial, but also more broadly, the propriety of the police’s conduct of the investigation generally.
Miles’s allegations of police misconduct went beyond rudeness and beating of a prospective witness who is a paraplegic, to threats of further physical violence, “planting” of evidence and fraudulent prosecution. Facing a complaint of such serious misconduct, the police could have been impeached with having an enhanced interest — beyond them usual interest in law enforcement — to “justify” their tactics by producing a perpetrator. In light of that evidence, as in Kyles,
Damage to the prosecution’s case would not have been confined to evidence of the eyewitnesses, for [Miles’s] various statements would have raised opportunities to attack not only the probative value of crucial physical evidence and the circumstances in which it was found, but the thoroughness and even the good faith of the investigation, as well.
514 U.S. at 445, 115 S.Ct. 1555.
I need not express my view about the accuracy of Miles’s statements to the police and his complaint to the CCRB, save to note that a jury could have believed them as Miles’s statements appear on the whole to be consistent, to include detail, and to have been promptly expressed. There has been no determination that Miles is not a credible witness.21 See 514 U.S. at 436, 115 S.Ct. 1555 (requiring that suppressed evidence be “considered collectively, not item by item”). I believe it is sufficient that the suppressed evidence was such that it would have been presented by the defense to the jury for its assessment, and that, if believed, it could have done serious damage to the government’s case by presenting the officers who participated in the buy-bust operation and the ensuing investigation in a very different light than the one actually shown to the jury in this case. Having so concluded, I think that to engage in any finer assessment ignores the defendant’s right to have counsel make an effective presentation to the jury with all the resources due process ensures and risks putting a reviewing court in the jury’s role and usurping its prerogative with respect to crediting the testimony of witnesses, weighing the facts and considering the arguments of counsel.
For the above reasons I conclude that there was a Brady violation and reversal is required.

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

. Because I would reverse on the Brady issue, I need not reach the other issue left pending in our original review of this appeal, whether the trial court erred in refusing to give a missing witness instruction. As the purported missing witness at trial, Dennis Miles, subsequently testified at the § 23-110 hearing and at the hearing on remand, I assume he would have been similarly available if he had been called at trial.

. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985).

. Wood v. Bartholomew, 516 U.S. 1, 116 S.Ct. 7, 133 L.Ed.2d 1 (1995).

. A deferential standard similar to that in Davies is applied. Sterling v. United States, 691 A.2d 126, 134 (D.C.1997); Matthews v. *234United States, 629 A.2d 1185, 1199 (D.C.1993); and Derrington v. United States, 488 A.2d 1314, 1339 (D.C.1985). There may well be others.

. The majority suggests that the Supreme Court’s independent review may apply only in the context of habeas petitions, and not in cases such as ours where the Brady ruling on review was made by the trial judge. A number of federal appellate courts, on direct appeal from federal district courts, apply de novo review to Brady rulings, however. See United States v. Quintanilla, 193 F.3d 1139, 1146 (10th Cir.1999) ("If a new trial motion is based on an alleged Brady violation, ... we review the district court’s ruling de novo.")] United States v. Amlani, 111 F.3d 705, 712 (9th Cir.1997) ("We review de novo allegations of Brady violations.”); United States v. Joseph, 996 F.2d 36, 39 (3rd Cir.1993) ("[Wjhen a Brady violation is alleged issues of law and fact usually are presented. In that circumstance, we review the district court's legal conclusions on a de novo basis and its factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard.”); United States v. Phillip, 948 F.2d 241, 250 (6th Cir.1991) ("Because materiality under Brady presents a mixed question of law and fact, ... our standard of review is de novo.")] United States v. Rivalta, 925 F.2d 596, 598 (2nd Cir.1991) (noting that “the materiality of an alleged Brady violation [is] not, as the government contends, ... a purely factual issue, but ... a mixed question of law and fact ... We therefore reject the government’s suggestion that we employ a 'clearly erroneous’ standard of review”). But see United States v. Silva, 71 F.3d 667, 670 (7th Cir.1995) (noting that because trial judge "is best positioned” to determine effect of a particular piece of evidence "in light of full context of the weight and credibility of all evidence,” appellate review of district court’s denial of a Brady claim on ground of materiality is for "abuse of discretion.")

. The government points out that Miles’s complaint was filed the day after Farley was arrested and suggests that the timing of the complaint casts doubt on Miles’s motive for his filing with the CCRB. There is no indication in the record on remand raising this suspicion. The trial court made no findings of facts in this regard or with respect to Miles’s credibility. Farley had subpoenaed Miles for the remand hearing and Miles was present; neither the trial court nor the government chose to question Miles.

. One of the reasons that prompted us to remand in our first opinion in this appeal is that "it is anomalous that there is no evidence in the record (or even outside the record as revealed by the government at oral argument) of any documentation whatsoever of Dennis Miles’[s] statements to the police." Farley, 694 A.2d at 889. Apparently, upon our calling attention to this anomaly, the government searched and was able to find such written documentation on remand.

. According to the transcript of the hearing on remand, the taped interview was not with the police, as the trial court noted, but with a CCRB officer.

. The corroborating evidence consisted of a coat that was found by the police in Miles’s apartment, and inferentially, could have been worn and shed by the fleeing suspect as he ran through Miles’s apartment. When recovered, the coat was found to contain papers with Farley’s name and a medicine bottle containing 23 ziplock bags of cocaine. The police testified at trial that the coat had been found in the kitchen of Miles’s apartment through which they chased the suspect. Farley’s explanation at trial was that the coat was his, but had been stolen earlier in the' day and the drugs subsequently put in the pocket by the thief. Farley, his brother and girlfriend testified that Farley’s coat had been stolen.

. The inconsistency noted by the trial court is that in the CCRB complaint and in his testimony at the § 23-110 hearing in 1995, Miles testified that the jacket was brought into his apartment “from the outside.” In his tape-recorded interview with a CCRB officer, Miles stated that the coat was being carried "from his kitchen.” See infra note 20.

. As noted, the majority does not reach this issue because it concludes that the undisclosed documents were not material under Brady.

. According to the trial court's Remand Memorandum, Miles’ statement to the police consists of two pages; only one page appears in the record on appeal. In the statement, which is signed by Detective Page, Miles describes that when he heard someone say "Police” at his door, at his request his girlfriend opened the door, and the police rushed in and asked whether Miles had seen the suspect ("where did the big fat guy go”). Miles testified that "[wjhen I said [']what guy[?’] that’s when the Police grabbed me and started punching me.”

.Of course, if at least the written statement taken by Detective Page had been turned over to the defense, defense counsel could have investigated Miles’s allegations and, presumably, have been led to the CCRB complaint and the taped interview. In either case, defense counsel would have had the material to which the defendant was entitled. The government’s argument that because the defendant knew Miles, defense counsel easily could have contacted him rings hollow when the government failed to disclose a statement that would have turned counsel onto the significance of Miles as a potential witness and where both the government and defense counsel consistently have maintained that they could not find Miles for trial. See Farley, 694 A.2d at 889 n. 9.

. The majority’s reliance on Cox v. District of Columbia, 821 F.Supp. at 5 (D.D.C.1993), aff'd (without opinion), 309 U.S.App. D.C. 219, 40 F.3d 475 (1994), is to no avail. Cox, a civil rights action against the District of Columbia, details the CCRB’s many failures. Cox does not address the government’s obligation under Brady in a situation where it has notice of a complaint made to the CCRB. The Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Kyles is controlling on that point.

. There are also two internal police memo-randa in the record on remand which outline the MPD’s investigation in 1997, five years after the incident, into Officer Zerega’s alleged abusive conduct toward Dennis Miles. According to one of the memoranda, Miles *238"refused to give further information" and “insisted that the matter be dropped.” As the memoranda, and the police investigation they describe, occurred several years after the government’s response to the defense request for documents and Farley’s trial, they are irrelevant to the issue before us.

. The government seems to argue that Brady does not apply because neither Miles’s written statement to the police on the night of the incident nor his CCRB complaint identified any of the officers who testified at trial. By this, I take it the government means that Miles did not identify the officers by name. Miles’s CCRB complaint did describe the officers by their appearance. It must be remembered that at least some of the officers who rushed into Miles’s apartment were participating in an undercover drug buy-bust operation and would not have been wearing their badges. The police were on notice the night of the incident, however, that the officers in the operation (whose identity is information peculiarly and perhaps exclusively within the police’s ken) had been accused by a witness of abusive conduct. Also the CCRB complaint identified by name an officer involved in the investigation of the crime. Thus, the police had a firm basis from which to execute its "duty to learn.” Kyles, 514 U.S. at 437, 115 S.Ct. 1555.

. Officer Johnson was one of the officers in the group of undercover police officers who rushed into Miles's apartment running after the suspect that Miles accused of abusive conduct; Officer Johnson identified Farley at trial.

. The evidence established that the kitchen had an outside window, and the government posited at trial that the kitchen window was the escape route taken by the suspect as he was being chased by the police through Miles's apartment. The police also testified that the suspect’s coat was found in the kitchen, by the window leading to the outside. Therefore, it would have been fairly simple to harmonize Miles's statements that the police brought the coat into the living room "from outside” and "from the kitchen.” See supra note 11.

.The majority opinion (but not the trial court) also relies on a black baseball cap with an “X” found on the scene. Although the officers testified that the seller in the undercover drug purchase wore such a cap, there was no evidence tying the baseball cap to Farley.

. At the remand hearing and on appeal, the government suggests that Miles's denial to the CCRB investigator during the taped interview, when asked whether he knew Farley, undermines Miles’s credibility in light of Miles’s long term friendship with Farley. It may well be that a jury would consider these facts relevant to Miles’s credibility, as it might also consider relevant that Miles may not have been disposed to disclose his friendship with Farley, especially if he knew Farley had recently been arrested. This is evidence that should have been presented to the jury for its assessment.