*Cherly Lucien
The Supreme Court should find that there is a distinction between impeachment evidence and exculpatory evidence, and in turn, extend the Brady doctrine to the plea-bargaining stage.
In Brady v. Maryland, the defendant went to trial for first-degree murder.[1] Before trial, the prosecution suppressed a statement that contained a confession from his accomplice.[2] The statement did not come to light until the defendant was tried, convicted, and sentenced.[3]
The Supreme Court established that “suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request 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.”[4] The underlying principle for this rule was that “our system of the administration of justice suffers when any accused is treated unfairly.”[5]
The Supreme Court expanded the doctrine to include impeachment evidence in Giglio v. United States.[6] The Giglio Court concluded that any information that could be used to attack a witness’s credibility constituted material evidence that had to be disclosed by the Government.[7]
Thirty years later, the Court receded upon the scope of Giglio in United States v. Ruiz.[8] In Ruiz, the Court considered whether “the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require federal prosecutors, before entering into a binding plea agreement with a criminal defendant, to disclose ‘impeachment information relating to any informants or other witnesses.’”[9] The fast track plea agreement at issue in Ruiz required the defendant to expressly waive the right to receive impeachment evidence, but the Government agreed to disclose “any known information establishing the factual innocence of the defendant.”[10]
The Court held the Constitution does not require the prosecution to disclose impeachment evidence before entering a plea agreement with a defendant.[11] The Court explained that “impeachment evidence is special in relation to the fairness of a trial, not in respect to whether a plea is voluntary . . . . [T]he Constitution does not require the prosecutor to share all useful information with the defendant.”[12] The Court further explained that there is a distinction between impeachment evidence and exculpatory evidence in that impeachment evidence is not “critical information of which the defendant must always be aware prior to pleading guilty given the random way in which such information may, or may not, help a particular defendant.”[13]
What is seemingly being swept under the rug is an opinion where the Supreme Court has already decided this issue in Wilde v. Wyoming.[14] In Wilde, the petitioner pled guilty to second-degree murder.[15] The Court held that the prosecutor “willfully suppressed the testimony of two eyewitnesses to the alleged crime which would have exonerated the petitioner.”[16] Thus, there is an opinion that affirmatively declares that the willful suppression of favorable evidence—exculpatory evidence—in the pretrial stage is a violation of the Due Process Clause.[17] The Wilde opinion has not been receded upon or overruled. To hold otherwise, is a deliberate indifference to the principles of law.[18]
This notion is best explained in the dissent opinion found in Alvarez:
Judicial opinions often extol liberty. As well they should when applying a Constitution that begins with a promise to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” and prohibits both federal and state governments from depriving a person of that liberty without due process of law . . . . It is difficult to think of greater deprivations of that liberty than the government’s allowing someone to be held in prison without telling him that there is evidence that might exonerate him. That tragic situation offends the “twofold aim” of our justice system, “which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.”[19]
Accordingly, the Supreme Court should hold that the Government is required to disclose exculpatory evidence even in the plea-bargaining stage.
* J.D. Candidate, May 2020, Florida International University College of Law
[1] Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 84 (1963).
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id. at 87.
[5] Id.
[6] Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972).
[7] Id. at 154–55. Again, central to the Court’s rationale was the administration of justice: “this Court made clear that deliberate deception of a court and jurors by the presentation of known false evidence is incompatible with ‘rudimentary demands of justice.’”
[8] United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622 (2002).
[9] Id. at 625 (emphasis added).
[10] Id. at 625–26.
[11] Id. at 629.
[12] Id.
[13] Id. at 630.
[14] Wilde v. Wyoming, 362 U.S. 607 (1960).
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Hutto v. Davis, 454 U.S. 370, 375 (1982) (Federal district courts and circuit courts are bound to adhere to the controlling decisions of the Supreme Court); Thurston Motor Lines, Inc. v. Jordan K. Rand, Ltd., 460 U.S. 533, 535 (1983) (“[O]nly this Court may overrule one of its precedents. Until that occurs, [the case] is the law.”).
[19] Alvarez v. City of Brownsville, 904 F.3d 382, 415 (5th Cir. 2018) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).