Court Opinion

ID: 9555903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-15 17:01:01.59995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:32.305866
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ROGER WAYNE PARKER,                               No. 22-55614

                 Plaintiff-Appellee,                D.C. No.
                                                 5:21-cv-01280-
    v.                                              JGB-KK

COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE; PAUL E.
ZELLERBACK; SEAN LAFFERTY;                          OPINION
TRICIA FRANSDAL; JEFFREY
VAN WAGENEN,

                 Defendants-Appellants.

         Appeal from the United States District Court
             for the Central District of California
          Jesus G. Bernal, District Judge, Presiding

              Argued and Submitted May 8, 2023
                    Pasadena, California

                     Filed August 15, 2023

    Before: Andrew D. Hurwitz and Ryan D. Nelson, Circuit
                         Judges. ∗

∗
 This case was decided by quorum of the panel. See 28 U.S.C. § 46(d);
Ninth Circuit General Order 3.2(h).
2                 PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

                    Per Curiam Opinion;
               Concurrence by Judge R. Nelson

                          SUMMARY **

                       Civil Rights/Brady

    The panel reversed the district court’s denial of
defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, and
remanded, in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983
alleging defendants violated plaintiff’s due process rights
under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by
suppressing another person’s confession to a murder for
which plaintiff was arrested and held for almost four years
before the charges were dismissed.
   The panel held that plaintiff could not show prejudice
from the nondisclosure of the confession. A Brady violation
requires that the withheld evidence have a reasonable
probability of affecting a judicial proceeding. Plaintiff did
not state a Brady claim because he did not assert the
nondisclosure would have changed the result of any
proceeding in his criminal case.
    The panel rejected plaintiff’s contention that the
prejudice inquiry should be whether the withheld evidence
had a reasonable probability of affecting counsel’s
strategy. The panel noted that no court has adopted
plaintiff’s proposed rule, and most other courts require a

**
  This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE               3

conviction to establish prejudice. Moreover, here, the cause
of plaintiff’s continued detention was not the suppression of
the confession, but the District Attorney’s continued
prosecution even after receiving the confession.
    The panel held that plaintiff might be able to establish a
different due process claim, as recognized in Tatum v.
Moody, 768 F.3d 806 (9th Cir. 2014), arising out of his
continued detention after it was or should have been known
that he was entitled to release. In this interlocutory appeal,
however, the panel was not asked to address the merits of
such a claim. Plaintiff can seek leave to amend his
complaint to assert that claim on remand.
     Concurring, Judge R. Nelson wrote separately to address
why Brady should not be extended to pretrial proceedings,
explaining that the Supreme Court has framed Brady as a
trial right and has never extended Brady to pretrial hearings.

                        COUNSEL

Tony M. Sain (argued) and Abigail J.R. McLaughlin
(argued), Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, Los
Angeles, California, for Defendants-Appellants.
Kimberly S. Trimble (argued), Gerald B. Singleton, and
John C. Lemon, Singleton Schreiber LLP, San Diego,
California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Eva Bitran and Summer Lacey, American Civil Liberties
Union Foundation of Southern California, Los Angeles,
California; Avram Frey, American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation of Northern California, San Francisco,
California; Lauren Bonds, National Police Accountability
4               PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

Project, Kansas City, Kansas; Eliana Machefsky, National
Police Accountability Project, Berkeley, California; for
Amici Curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Southern
California, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California, and National Police Accountability Project of the
National Lawyers’ Guild.
Whitney Z. Bernstein and Sandra C. Lechman, Bienert
Katzman Littrell Williams LLP, San Clemente, California,
for Amicus Curiae The Law Enforcement Action
Partnership.

                        OPINION

PER CURIAM:

    Roger Wayne Parker was arrested for murder and held
for almost four years before the charges against him were
dismissed, months after another person confessed to the
crime. Years later, Parker then sued the County of Riverside
and various County officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
claiming that they had violated his due process rights under
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by suppressing the
separate confession. The district court denied a motion for
judgment on the pleadings on the Brady claim. We reverse
and remand, without prejudice to Parker asserting a different
due process claim. A Brady violation requires that the
withheld evidence have a reasonable probability of affecting
a judicial proceeding, and no such proceeding was affected
here.
                  PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE                    5

                                  I
     Brandon Stevenson was murdered at a house Parker
shared with Willie Womack. 1 Parker was not home when
the police arrived but was detained upon his return. After a
fifteen-hour interrogation, Parker, who is developmentally
delayed, confessed to the murder but claims that he did so
“sarcastically” and because of police pressure.
    Prosecutors had doubts about Parker’s guilt from the
outset. The first prosecutor assigned to the case, Deputy
District Attorney (DA) Lisa DiMaria, believed the
confession was a sham. At a staff meeting days after
Parker’s arrest, she expressed serious concerns about his
guilt. A year later, after receiving an analysis of the physical
evidence (including DNA), DiMaria requested authorization
to dismiss the case because of Parker’s likely innocence.
Assistant DA Sean Lafferty denied the request and
reassigned the case to Deputy DA Chris Ross. Lafferty
explained that the DA insisted on pursuing the charges and
DiMaria refused to prosecute because she believed Parker
was innocent. DiMaria later shared her concerns with Ross
directly.
   Ross also came to question Parker’s guilt. Over the next
two and a half years, Ross repeatedly told Lafferty that
prosecutors lacked probable cause to hold Parker and could
not prove the charge. Lafferty and other supervisors
nonetheless refused to dismiss the case.
    Over three years into Parker’s detention, Ross obtained
recordings of phone calls in which Womack, the former

1
  We take these facts from the allegations in the complaint, which we
accept as true. See Honey v. Distelrath, 195 F.3d 531, 532 (9th Cir.
1999).
6               PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

roommate, admitted to the murder. Lafferty instructed Ross
not to disclose the calls to Parker’s attorney and removed
Ross from the case.
    Approximately six months after discovering the
confession, the DA’s Office requested dismissal due to
insufficiency of the evidence but did not notify Parker of
Womack’s confession. When charges were dismissed,
Parker had been detained for almost four years. There had
never been a preliminary hearing because it was “continued
several times.” Parker first learned of Womack’s confession
six years after his release, and the Superior Court later found
him factually innocent.
    Parker then filed a § 1983 action against the County, DA,
and supervisors in the DA’s Office, asserting denial of due
process arising out of the suppression of exculpatory
evidence in violation of the Fifth Amendment and Brady.
The district court denied a defense motion for judgment on
the pleadings, holding that Parker stated a “Brady-related
claim” because the suppression of Womack’s confession
prolonged his pretrial detention. The district court certified
the Brady issue for an interlocutory appeal, which we
accepted.
                              II
    We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). “We
review de novo a district court’s judgment on the pleadings.”
Knappenberger v. City of Phoenix, 566 F.3d 936, 939 (9th
Cir. 2009). “Judgment on the pleadings is proper when,
taking all the allegations in the pleadings as true, the moving
party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Honey, 195
F.3d at 532.
                PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE               7

                             III
    Under Brady, “the suppression by the prosecution of
evidence favorable to an accused . . . 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.” 373 U.S. at 87. Brady requires the disclosure
of “impeachment evidence as well as exculpatory evidence.”
Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280 (1999). Even
inadvertent failure to disclose may violate this duty, which
does not require a criminal defendant’s request. See United
States v. Bruce, 984 F.3d 884, 894 (9th Cir. 2021).
Disclosures “must be made at a time when [the] disclosure
would be of value to the accused.” United States v. Aichele,
941 F.2d 761, 764 (9th Cir. 1991) (quoting United States v.
Gordon, 844 F.2d 1397, 1403 (9th Cir. 1988)).
    A Brady violation has three elements: “The evidence at
issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is
exculpatory, or because it is impeaching; that evidence must
have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or
inadvertently; and prejudice must have ensued.” Strickler,
527 U.S. at 281–82. The parties dispute only the third
element, whether Parker can show prejudice from the
nondisclosure.
    The principle underlying Brady is “not punishment of
society for misdeeds of a prosecutor but avoidance of an
unfair trial to the accused.” 373 U.S. at 87. While “[t]he
term ‘Brady violation’ is sometimes used to refer to any
breach of the broad obligation to disclose exculpatory
evidence,” the Supreme Court has explained that “there is
never a real ‘Brady violation’ unless the nondisclosure was
so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the
suppressed evidence would have produced a different
8               PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

verdict.” Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281; see also Kyles v.
Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 435 (1995) (Brady violation requires
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”).
       “A ‘true’ Brady violation therefore occurs only where
. . . the evidence was material to the outcome such that the
defendant was prejudiced by the suppression.” Bailey v.
Rae, 339 F.3d 1107, 1113 (9th Cir. 2003). “Evidence is
material within the meaning of Brady when there is a
reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed,
the result of the proceeding would have been different.”
Turner v. United States, 582 U.S. 313, 324 (2017) (cleaned
up); see also United States v. Kohring, 637 F.3d 895, 913
(9th Cir. 2011) (observing that a new trial is usually “the
appropriate remedy” for a Brady violation (quoting United
States v. Chapman, 524 F.3d 1073, 1086 (9th Cir. 2008)));
United States v. Jernigan, 492 F.3d 1050, 1053 (9th Cir.
2007) (en banc) (“The touchstone of materiality review is
whether admission of the suppressed evidence would have
created a reasonable probability of a different result.”
(cleaned up)).
    We have applied Brady in the pretrial context. For
instance, “a defendant challenging the voluntariness of a
guilty plea may assert a Brady claim.” Sanchez v. United
States, 50 F.3d 1448, 1453 (9th Cir. 1995). We assess
prejudice in this circumstance by asking “whether there is a
reasonable probability that but for the failure to disclose the
Brady material, the defendant would have refused to plead
and would have gone to trial.” Id. at 1454. Likewise, we
have held that Brady applies to a hearing on a motion to
suppress. See United States v. Gamez-Orduño, 235 F.3d
453, 461 (9th Cir. 2000). Even in the pretrial context, the
                  PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE                     9

inquiry is “if there is a reasonable probability that, had the
evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would
have been different.” Id.
    The difficulty in this case is that there was no judicial
proceeding that could be affected by the withheld
confession. Without that, Parker cannot show Brady
prejudice, and his Brady claim fails. 2
    Parker seeks to extend our rule, asserting that the
prejudice inquiry should be whether the withheld evidence
had a reasonable probability of affecting his counsel’s
strategy. Had the DA’s Office turned over the confession,
Parker contends, there is a reasonable probability that his
counsel would have demanded a preliminary hearing rather
than consent to continuances that prolonged his pretrial
detention.
    But Parker’s harm did not result from a proceeding
tainted by nondisclosure, and we see no reason to extend
Brady beyond its limited purpose. Although Brady sounds
in due process, see Dist. Att’y’s Off. for the Third Jud. Dist.
v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52, 68 (2009), it remedies the injustice
that results when “a state has contrived a conviction through
the pretense of a trial,” Brady, 373 U.S. at 86 (quoting
Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112 (1935)). To
implicate Brady, the harm must result from the
government’s failure to disclose material exculpatory or
impeaching evidence. Here, the cause of Parker’s continued
detention was not the suppression, but the DA’s continued
prosecution even after receiving Womack’s confession. Had

2
  We reject Parker’s argument that Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319
(1976), controls whether the Brady claim is viable. Whether additional
procedural safeguards are warranted, see id. at 335, is irrelevant to
whether Parker meets Brady’s substantive requirements.
10              PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

the DA immediately dismissed the charges against Parker
after learning of the confession, he would not have been
detained for the extra six months, whether or not the
confession had been turned over.
    No court has adopted Parker’s proposed rule. Indeed,
most other courts have required a conviction to establish
prejudice. See Livers v. Schenck, 700 F.3d 340, 359 (8th Cir.
2012) (rejecting applicability of Brady to pretrial
proceedings); Becker v. Kroll, 494 F.3d 904, 924 (10th Cir.
2007) (“A plaintiff cannot establish materiality unless the
case goes to trial and the suppression of exculpatory
evidence affects the outcome.”); Flores v. Satz, 137 F.3d
1275, 1278 (11th Cir. 1998) (per curiam). These courts
reason that Brady requires a conviction because the Supreme
Court has instructed that “Brady is violated only when ‘there
is a reasonable probability that the suppressed evidence
would have produced a different verdict.’” Livers, 700 F.3d
at 359 (quoting Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281); see also Becker,
494 F.3d at 924 (describing Brady as “framing the right to
exculpatory evidence only in terms of providing a fair trial”);
Flores, 137 F.3d at 1278 (Brady not implicated because the
plaintiff “did not suffer the effects of an unfair trial”). But
neither the Ninth Circuit nor any other circuit has found
Brady prejudice when the nondisclosure did not affect the
outcome of a criminal proceeding.
    Parker did not state a Brady claim because he does not
claim the nondisclosure would have changed the result of
any proceeding in his criminal case. On appeal, Parker cited
Tatum v. Moody, which holds that a defendant can state a
due process claim arising out of “continued detention after it
was or should have been known that [he] was entitled to
release.” 768 F.3d 806, 816 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting Lee v.
City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 683 (9th Cir. 2001)).
                   PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE                       11

Parker may well be able to state such a claim, but it is not a
Brady claim. The claim recognized in Tatum, which “can be
characterized as one . . . of mistaken identity,” id. at 815,
does not rest on prosecutors’ failure to provide the defense
with material exculpatory evidence, see Lee, 250 F.3d at
683–85. Indeed, Tatum did not rely on Brady, but instead on
Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 145 (1979), for the
proposition that under certain circumstances, “detention
pursuant to a valid warrant but in the face of repeated
protests of innocence will after the lapse of a certain amount
of time deprive the accused of liberty without due process of
law.” Tatum, 768 F.3d at 816 (cleaned up).
    In this interlocutory appeal, however, we are not asked
to address the merits of a Tatum–Lee claim. On remand,
Parker can seek leave to amend his complaint to assert that
claim. 3
                                   IV
    Because there was no judicial proceeding, Parker cannot
show that he was prejudiced by any failure to disclose Brady
evidence.
     REVERSED AND REMANDED. Each party to bear
its own costs.

3
 Parker suggested for the first time at argument that his complaint stated
a general due process claim. We do not interpret his extant complaint,
which cites Brady and tracks the elements of a Brady claim, to do so.
The district court also did not read Parker’s complaint more broadly.
And Parker’s answering brief omitted this argument and discussed non-
Brady cases only to support his Brady claim.
12              PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

R. NELSON, Circuit Judge, concurring:

    I write separately to address why Brady should not be
extended to pretrial proceedings. The Supreme Court has
framed Brady as a trial right; it has never extended Brady to
pretrial hearings. Where the Supreme Court is silent, we
should extend precedent to novel contexts only when
consistent with the Constitution’s text and original public
meaning, neither of which appear to support applying Brady
pretrial. In previously extending Brady, we have eschewed
the Supreme Court’s guidance and split from most of our
sister circuits. While our pretrial Brady cases do not control
the outcome in this case, making en banc review
unwarranted here, we should correct this error in an
appropriate case.
                               I
    We are bound to follow Supreme Court precedent. See
Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 1170 (9th Cir. 2001). We
do not, however, “dissect the sentences of the United States
Reports as though they were the United States Code.” St.
Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515 (1993).
Instead, we “read general language in judicial opinions” to
“refer[] in context to circumstances similar to the
circumstances then before the Court and not referring to
quite different circumstances that the Court was not then
considering.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 424 (2004).
     Brady arose in the context of a suppressed confession
that led to a criminal conviction, and its facts illustrate the
contours of the due process right recognized. The petitioner,
John Brady, and his companion, Boblit, were found guilty of
first-degree murder and sentenced to death. See Brady v.
Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 84 (1963). Brady admitted his
                PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE              13

participation but claimed that Boblit did the actual killing.
See id. After an unsuccessful appeal, Brady learned that the
prosecution had withheld Boblit’s out-of-court statement
admitting to the homicide. See id. Brady then sought post-
conviction relief because of the suppressed statement, and
the Maryland Court of Appeals (then the court of last resort
in Maryland) recognized a due process violation. See id. at
85. The question before the Supreme Court was “whether
petitioner was denied a federal right when the Court of
Appeals restricted the new trial to the question of
punishment.” Id.
    The Supreme Court largely relied on three precedents to
support its holding, each of which focused on erroneous
convictions obtained through an unfair trial. See id. at 86–
87. First, Mooney v. Holohan explained,

       [Due process] is a requirement that cannot be
       deemed to be satisfied by mere notice and
       hearing if a state has contrived a conviction
       through the pretense of a trial which in truth
       is but used as a means of depriving a
       defendant of liberty through a deliberate
       deception of court and jury by the
       presentation of testimony known to be
       perjured.

294 U.S. 103, 112 (1935) (emphasis added). Second, in Pyle
v. Kansas, the Supreme Court reiterated its concern with a
conviction resulting from “perjured testimony, knowingly
used by the State authorities to obtain his conviction, and
from the deliberate suppression by those same authorities of
evidence favorable to him.” 317 U.S. 213, 216 (1942)
(emphasis added). Finally, in Napue v. Illinois, the Court re-
14              PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

emphasized “[t]he principle that a State may not knowingly
use false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a
tainted conviction.” 360 U.S. 264, 269 (1959). Brady
distilled the principle of those decisions as “avoidance of an
unfair trial to the accused.” 373 U.S. at 87 (emphasis
added).
    Since Brady, the Supreme Court has repeatedly
emphasized the fairness of trial when analyzing Brady
prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112
(1976) (“The proper standard of materiality must reflect our
overriding concern with the justice of the finding of guilt.”);
Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281 (1999) (“[T]here is
never a real ‘Brady violation’ unless the nondisclosure was
so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the
suppressed evidence would have produced a different
verdict.”); Turner v. United States, 582 U.S. 313, 324 (2017)
(“A reasonable probability of a different result is one in
which the suppressed evidence undermines confidence in the
outcome of the trial.” (cleaned up)).
     Put simply, Brady’s due process holding is confined to
trial. Nothing in these decisions suggests that Brady applies
in pretrial proceedings.
                              II
                              A
    The Supreme Court’s silence does not foreclose our
extension of Brady to pretrial proceedings. But we should
do so only if consistent with the Constitution’s text and
original public meaning. While that issue can be fully
addressed in a future case, the Constitution does not appear
to support our extension. And the Supreme Court’s
                 PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE                 15

instruction in related areas strongly suggests that we should
rethink our caselaw.
     While we are bound to follow the Supreme Court’s
precedents, “our fidelity is not blind.” NLRB v. Int’l Ass’n
of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, & Reinforcing Iron
Workers, Local 229, 974 F.3d 1106, 1116 (9th Cir. 2020)
(Bumatay, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en
banc). “We always have a ‘duty to interpret the Constitution
in light of its text, structure, and original understanding,’” id.
(citation omitted), and should not extend “ahistorical,
atextual” precedent beyond its original scope and context,
Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 4 F.4th 910, 945 (9th Cir.
2021) (R. Nelson, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing
en banc). “So if we are forced to choose between upholding
the Constitution and extending precedent in direct conflict
with the Constitution, the choice should be clear: Our duty
is to apply the Constitution—not extend precedent.” Texas
v. Rettig, 993 F.3d 408, 417 (5th Cir. 2021) (Ho, J.,
dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc) (cleaned
up).
    “In light of the Supreme Court’s silence on” the
application of Brady to pretrial proceedings, “we must look
to the Constitution’s original meaning.” Preterm-Cleveland
v. McCloud, 994 F.3d 512, 545 (6th Cir. 2021) (en banc)
(Bush, J., concurring).        The Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments prohibit the federal and state governments
respectively from depriving a person “of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amends.
V & XIV. Admittedly, the term “due process” is ambiguous.
See Max Crema & Lawrence B. Solum, The Original
Meaning of “Due Process of Law” in the Fifth Amendment,
108 Va. L. Rev. 447, 451 (2022). Early American law,
however, suggests that the right crafted by Brady was itself
16              PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

not encapsulated in the traditional conception of due process.
See Michael Moore, Criminal Discovery, 19 Hastings L.J.
865, 865–70 (1968). The early courts appear to have
adopted the English common-law rule that courts lacked the
power, without legislation, to order prosecutors to reveal
evidence in the state’s possession. See id. at 866. Indeed,
even in 1923, courts rejected pretrial discovery for criminal
defendants. Cf. United States v. Garsson, 291 F. 646, 649
(S.D.N.Y. 1923) (L. Hand, J.) (“Why [the criminal
defendant] should in advance have the whole evidence
against him to pick over at his leisure, and make his defense,
fairly or foully, I have never been able to see.”). Given that
Brady is in tension with the text and original public meaning
of the Constitution, we should not extend it as we have.
    Separately, as I have previously noted, our holding that
Brady applies during plea bargaining conflicts with the
Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S.
622 (2002). See United States v. Harshman, No. 19-35131,
2021 WL 3929926, at *2–4 (9th Cir. Sept. 2, 2021) (R.
Nelson, J., concurring). Ruiz held that “the Constitution
does not require the Government to disclose material
impeachment evidence prior to entering a plea agreement
with a criminal defendant.” 536 U.S. at 633. In reaching
this holding, the Supreme Court reasoned that “a
constitutional obligation to provide impeachment
information during plea bargaining, prior to entry of a guilty
plea, could seriously interfere with the Government’s
interest in securing those guilty pleas that are factually
justified, desired by defendants, and help to secure the
efficient administration of justice.” Id. at 631. By allowing
criminal defendants to raise Brady claims at the plea stage,
we may undermine the goals of plea bargaining that the
Supreme Court has identified.
                PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE               17

    In short, the Constitution’s text and original public
meaning counsel against extending Brady. And Supreme
Court precedent suggests that Brady should not apply during
plea bargaining, or at least, that we should revisit this issue
with the benefit of Ruiz.
                              B
    What about our sister circuits? Not all have addressed
the issues in Sanchez v. United States, 50 F.3d 1448, 1453
(9th Cir. 1995) (plea hearing), and United States v. Gamez-
Orduno, 235 F.3d 453, 461 (9th Cir. 2000) (suppression
hearing). But published decisions from other circuits
conflict with our holdings and confirm that we have
stretched the Brady right too far.
    The First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Circuits underscore
Brady’s concern with fairness in the ultimate conviction and
accordingly reject its application to plea hearings. “To
constitute a Brady violation, the nondisclosure must do more
than impede the defendant’s ability to prepare for trial; it
must adversely affect the court’s ability to reach a just
conclusion, to the prejudice of the defendant.” United States
v. Starusko, 729 F.2d 256, 262 (3d Cir. 1984), abrogated on
other grounds by Dennis v. Sec’y, Pa. Dep’t of Corr., 834
F.3d 263, 289–93 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc). “It is, therefore,
universally acknowledged that the right memorialized in
Brady is a trial right.” United States v. Mathur, 624 F.3d
498, 507 (1st Cir. 2010); see also United States v.
Moussaoui, 591 F.3d 263, 285 (4th Cir. 2010). Rejecting the
extension of Brady to pretrial plea negotiations, the First
Circuit explained, “courts enforce Brady in order ‘to
minimize the chance that an innocent person [will] be found
guilty.’” Mathur, 624 F.3d at 507 (citation omitted). The
Fourth Circuit reasoned similarly: “When a defendant pleads
18              PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE

guilty, those concerns [of a fair verdict] are almost
completely eliminated because his guilt is admitted.”
Moussaoui, 591 F.3d at 285. And the importance of the plea
hearing “provides no support for an unprecedented
expansion of Brady.” Mathur, 624 F.3d at 507; see also
Alvarez v. City of Brownsville, 904 F.3d 382, 394 (5th Cir.
2018) (“In sum, case law from the Supreme Court, [the Fifth
Circuit], and other circuits does not affirmatively establish
that a constitutional violation occurs when Brady material is
not shared during the plea bargaining process.”).
     The Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits parse the
Supreme Court’s materiality test—which requires the
suppressed evidence to affect the verdict or outcome of
trial—to limit Brady prejudice to cases in which the criminal
defendant is convicted. “A plaintiff cannot establish
materiality unless the case goes to trial and the suppression
of exculpatory evidence affects the outcome.” Becker v.
Kroll, 494 F.3d 904, 924 (10th Cir. 2007); see also Livers v.
Schenck, 700 F.3d 340, 359 (8th Cir. 2012) (in qualified
immunity context, no Brady violation absent conviction);
Flores v. Satz, 137 F.3d 1275, 1278 (11th Cir. 1998).
Likewise, when “the underlying criminal proceeding
terminated in appellant’s favor, he has not been injured by
the act of wrongful suppression of exculpatory evidence.”
McCune v. City of Grand Rapids, 842 F.2d 903, 907 (6th Cir.
1988).
    The Seventh Circuit has “expressed doubt that an
acquitted defendant can ever establish the requisite prejudice
for a Brady claim.” Alexander v. McKinney, 692 F.3d 553,
556 (7th Cir. 2012). Having yet to decide the issue, the
Seventh Circuit has allowed Brady claims where “an
acquitted defendant showed that disclosure of the suppressed
evidence would have altered the decision to go to trial.” Id.
                PARKER V. COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE             19

Note, however, that the Seventh Circuit’s analysis differs
from ours in focusing on the prosecutor’s decision, rather
than the defendant’s, to proceed to trial. See Parish v. City
of Chicago, 594 F.3d 551, 554 (7th Cir. 2009) (“Parish may
still have had a Brady-type due process claim after he was
acquitted, if (as he alleges) prompt disclosure of the
suppressed evidence would have altered the prosecution’s
decision to proceed to trial.”).
    Against these persuasive decisions, our only ally is the
Second Circuit. See United States v. Overton, 24 F.4th 870,
878 (2d Cir. 2022). Adopting a similar prejudice test, the
Second Circuit allows Brady claims during a plea hearing.
See id. But the Second Circuit did not consider whether
extending Brady adhered to the Constitution’s original
public meaning. See Miller v. Angliker, 848 F.2d 1312,
1319–22 (2d Cir. 1988).
    In sum, all but two of our sister circuits have
appropriately limited Brady to trial. We should join them in
an appropriate case.
                             III
    Our duty is to uphold the Constitution. We have
deviated from its text and original public meaning in
extending Brady. In an appropriate case, we should realign
our Brady caselaw with the Constitution and the prevailing
view among the other circuits.