Court Opinion

ID: 9474861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:11:09.895715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:23.006766
License: Public Domain

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
For the reasons set forth in the opinion of the Court, I agree that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed. I write separately to address footnote 2 of the opinion of the Court, ante at 110, and to indicate my continuing belief that the view of United States v. Bagley, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985), set forth in United States v. Ben M. Hogan Co., Inc., 769 F.2d 1293 (8th Cir.1985), is correct.
As the opinion of the Court observes, the Supreme Court in Bagley adopted a “reasonable probability” standard of materiality for evidence requested by a defendant. See ante at 110. We concluded in Hogan that this standard of materiality applies irrespective of the specificity of the request. 769 F.2d at 1299. This conclusion follows from the explicit statement in the concurring opinion in Bagley, 105 S.Ct. at 3385 (White, J., joined by Burger, C.J., and Rehnquist, J.), and from the language in Justice Blackmun’s opinion, which was joined by Justice O’Connor. Id. at 3384. In discussing the relevance of the defense’s request for disclosure, Justice Blackmun stated that
under the [reasonable probability] formulation the reviewing court may consider directly any adverse effect that the prosecutor’s failure to respond might have had on the preparation or presentation of the defendant’s case ... in light of the totality of the circumstances and with an awareness of the difficulty of reconstructing in a post-trial proceeding the course that the defense and the trial would have taken had the defense not been misled by the prosecutor’s incomplete response.
Id. This passage, to my mind, reflects a concern not with the specificity of the request, but rather with the effect that the nondisclosure had on the fairness of the trial. The concurrence written by Justice White specifically agrees with Justice Blackmun’s adoption of the reasonable probability standard of materiality, and further observes, again in agreement with Justice Blackmun, that the reasonable probability test is sufficient to deal with all cases of prosecutorial failure to disclose evidence favorable to the accused. Id. at 3385. Thus I believe that Hogan is consistent with the position adopted by a majority of the Supreme Court in Bagley.
Similarly, I am unable to find any indication in the Bagley opinions that the Court would distinguish between bench and jury trials for purposes of the materiality standard. In any event, I am convinced that the nondisclosure of the evidence at issue in this case does nothing to undermine confidence in the result reached by the jury. Accordingly, I join the Court’s opinion subject to the above reservations concerning footnote 2.