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FAILURE TO INFORM THE DEFENSE ABOUT A SECOND EYEWITNESS TO THE SHOOTING WAS A REVERSIBLE BRADY VIOLATION, THE MOTION TO VACATE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRANTED; NEW TRIAL ORDERED (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Mazzarelli, reversing Supreme Court, over a dissent, granted defendant’s motion to vacate his conviction and ordered a new trial, based upon the People’s failure to notify the defense of a second eyewitness to the shooting (a Brady violation). The opinion is too detailed factually and too comprehensive legally to fully summarize here:

Several months after the trial concluded, the assistant district attorney who tried the case received an inter-office email attaching a report from a detective who had interviewed an eyewitness to the shooting. The ADA and another prosecutor had themselves interviewed the witness before the trial, having learned that a man who had been arrested for a drug sale near the Polo Grounds told a detective that he had seen the Philips shooting. The prosecutors spoke to the eyewitness in the detective’s presence, and no one took notes. Both prosecutors recalled only that the witness said he saw a man in brown clothes go down the 110 step-staircase, shoot Phillips, and go back up the steps. The ADA concluded that the statement was “cumulative” and did not disclose it to the defense. However, after receiving the email, he notified defendant’s trial counsel about the witness, and attached the report, which he stated he had not known had ever been created. * * *

Defendant moved pursuant to CPL 440.10 to vacate the judgment of conviction on the ground that it was obtained in violation of his state and federal constitutional rights, including his rights under Brady. Defendant noted that the prosecution failed to disclose that it had interviewed a second eyewitness two years before trial and failed to disclose the report. Defendant’s trial lawyer submitted an affirmation in which he explained how timely disclosure of the information would have affected his preparation of the defense, including a misidentification defense. His investigator also submitted an affidavit in which he stated that timely disclosure would have been valuable because the statement contained “several strong leads.” For example, he would have spoken to the eyewitness before his memory faded or he became uncooperative, and he would have located the other two people who were sitting with the eyewitness. In addition, the rumor that Phillips robbed Social Security recipients was another lead that would have caused the investigator to seek out people not otherwise on the defense “radar” for potential leads about Phillips or those who wanted to kill him. People v McGhee, 2019 NY Slip Op 09116, First Dept 12-19-19

 

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