Existence of Brady Material Concerning Law Suit Against Interrogating Officer for Eliciting a False Confession Required Hearing on Motion to Vacate Judgment of Conviction

The defendant claimed that his confession was involuntary because he was physically abused by the interrogating officer (O’Leary). After his conviction for depraved indifference murder the defendant brought a motion to vacate the conviction on the ground that the interrogating officer had been sued for allegedly extracting a false confession and the prosecution did not provide that “Brady” material to him.  In reversing the trial court’s denial of the motion to vacate and remitting the matter for a hearing, the Second Department wrote an exhaustive overview of the law concerning “Brady” material in New York.  Although rather long, the court’s explanation is provided here because of its clarity:

A defendant is entitled, under the state and federal constitutions, “to discover favorable evidence in the People’s possession material to guilt or punishment”)…. Indeed, the law requires that Brady material be produced whether or not the defendant requests any such evidence …. To establish a Brady violation, 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” because the evidence was material … .

Here, the allegedly suppressed evidence clearly fell within the ambit of the prosecutor’s Brady obligation because it constituted impeachment evidence…. Moreover, the People’s failure to disclose the existence of the civil action may have denied the defendant the opportunity to conduct an investigation leading to additional exculpatory or impeaching evidence , for instance, providing a basis for the disclosure of police personnel records otherwise unavailable … .

“In New York, where a defendant makes a specific request for a document, the materiality element is established provided there exists a reasonable possibility’ that it would have changed the result of the proceedings” ….”Absent a specific request by defendant for the document, materiality can only be demonstrated by a showing that there is a reasonable probability’ that it would have changed the outcome of the proceedings” …. Here, the record does not demonstrate that the defendant made a specific request for the allegedly suppressed information. Nevertheless, we find that there was a “reasonable probability” that disclosure of the lawsuit would have changed the outcome of the defendant’s trial. The primary evidence at trial establishing the defendant’s identity as the murderer was his confession. The other evidence tying him to the crime was weak, consisting of testimony that he was seen with the victim shortly before she disappeared. Since the credibility of the detectives who obtained the defendant’s confession was of central importance in the case, the nondisclosure was material … .

Accordingly, a hearing is necessary to determine whether the District Attorney’s office had sufficient knowledge of the suit against O’Leary so as to trigger its obligations under Brady. Evidence subject to disclosure under Brady includes evidence “known only to police investigators and not to the prosecutor”…, and, therefore, “the individual prosecutor has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in th[is] case, including the police” … ;This rule is based upon the principle that “[t]he government cannot with its right hand say it has nothing while its left hand holds what is of value” …. Here, the attorney’s affirmation submitted in opposition to the defendant’s motion, which was based only on a review of files, is insufficient to establish that no one to whom the obligation under Brady extended, other than perhaps O’Leary himself …, had knowledge of the civil action at any time during which the prosecution’s Brady obligation was ongoing.   People v Garrett, 2013 NY Slip Op 03498, 2nd Dept, 5-15-13