| [1] | SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES |
| [2] | No. 490 |
| [3] | 1963.SCT.40876 <http://www.versuslaw.com>; 373
U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 |
| [4] | decided: May 13, 1963. |
| [5] | BRADY v. MARYLAND |
| [6] | CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND. |
| [7] | E. Clinton Bamberger, Jr. argued the cause for petitioner. With him on
the brief was John Martin Jones, Jr. |
| [8] | Thomas W. Jamison III, Special Assistant Attorney General of Maryland,
argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Thomas B.
Finan, Attorney General, and Robert C. Murphy, Deputy Attorney
General. |
| [9] | Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Stewart, White,
Goldberg |
| [10] | Author: Douglas |
| [11] | Opinion of the Court by MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, announced by MR. JUSTICE
BRENNAN. |
| [12] | Petitioner and a companion, Boblit, were found guilty of murder in the
first degree and were sentenced to death, their convictions being affirmed
by the Court of Appeals of Maryland. 220 Md. 454, 154 A. 2d 434. Their
trials were separate, petitioner being tried first. At his trial
Brady took the stand and admitted his participation in the
crime, but he claimed that Boblit did the actual killing. And, in his
summation to the jury, Brady's counsel conceded that
Brady was guilty of murder in the first degree, asking only
that the jury return that verdict "without capital punishment." Prior to
the trial petitioner's counsel had requested the prosecution to allow him
to examine Boblit's extra-judicial statements. Several of those statements
were shown to him; but one dated July 9, 1958, in which Boblit admitted
the actual homicide, was withheld by the prosecution and did not come to
petitioner's notice until after he had been tried, convicted, and
sentenced, and after his conviction had been affirmed. |
| [13] | Petitioner moved the trial court for a new trial based on the newly
discovered evidence that had been suppressed by the prosecution.
Petitioner's appeal from a denial of that motion was dismissed by the
Court of Appeals without prejudice to relief under the Maryland Post
Conviction Procedure Act. 222 Md. 442, 160 A. 2d 912. The petition for
post-conviction relief was dismissed by the trial court; and on appeal the
Court of Appeals held that suppression of the evidence by the prosecution
denied petitioner due process of law and remanded the case for a retrial
of the question of punishment, not the question of guilt. 226 Md. 422, 174
A. 2d 167. The case is here on certiorari, 371 U.S. 812.*fn1 |
| [14] | The crime in question was murder committed in the perpetration of a
robbery. Punishment for that crime in Maryland is life imprisonment or
death, the jury being empowered to restrict the punishment to life by
addition of the words "without capital punishment." 3 Md. Ann. Code, 1957,
Art. 27, § 413. In Maryland, by reason of the state constitution, the jury
in a criminal case are "the Judges of Law, as well as of fact." Art. XV, §
5. The question presented is whether petitioner was denied a federal right
when the Court of Appeals restricted the new trial to the question of
punishment. We
agree with the Court of Appeals that suppression of this confession was a
violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court
of Appeals relied in the main on two decisions from the Third Circuit
Court of Appeals -- United States ex rel. Almeida v. Baldi, 195
F.2d 815, and United States ex rel. Thompson v. Dye,
221 F.2d 763 -- which, we agree, state the correct
constitutional rule. |
| [15] | This ruling is an extension of Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S.
103, 112, where the Court ruled on what nondisclosure by a
prosecutor violates due process: |
| [16] | "It 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. Such a contrivance by
a State to procure the conviction and imprisonment of a defendant is as
inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice as is the obtaining
of a like result by intimidation." |
| [17] | In Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U.S. 213, 215-216, we
phrased the rule in broader terms: |
| [18] | "Petitioner's papers are inexpertly drawn, but they do set forth
allegations that his imprisonment resulted 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. These allegations sufficiently charge a deprivation of rights
guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, and, if proven, would entitle
petitioner to release from his present custody. Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103. " The
Third Circuit in the Baldi case construed that statement in Pyle v. Kansas
to mean that the "suppression of evidence favorable" to the accused was
itself sufficient to amount to a denial of due process. 195
F.2d, at 820. In Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 269, we extended the test formulated in Mooney v. Holohan
when we said: "The same result obtains when the State, although not
soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorrected when it appears."
And see Alcorta v. Texas, 355 U.S. 28; Wilde v.
Wyoming, 362 U.S. 607. Cf. Durley v. Mayo,
351 U.S. 277, 285 (dissenting opinion). |
| [19] | We now hold that the 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. |
| [20] | The principle of Mooney v. Holohan is not punishment of society for
misdeeds of a prosecutor but avoidance of an unfair trial to the accused.
Society wins not only when the guilty are convicted but when criminal
trials are fair; our system of the administration of justice suffers when
any accused is treated unfairly. An inscription on the walls of the
Department of Justice states the proposition candidly for the federal
domain: "The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its
citizens in the courts."*fn2
A prosecution that withholds evidence on demand of an accused which, if
made available, would
tend to exculpate him or reduce the penalty helps shape a trial that bears
heavily on the defendant. That casts the prosecutor in the role of an
architect of a proceeding that does not comport with standards of justice,
even though, as in the present case, his action is not "the result of
guile," to use the words of the Court of Appeals. 226 Md., at 427, 174 A.
2d, at 169. |
| [21] | The question remains whether petitioner was denied a constitutional
right when the Court of Appeals restricted his new trial to the question
of punishment. In justification of that ruling the Court of Appeals
stated: |
| [22] | "There is considerable doubt as to how much good Boblit's undisclosed
confession would have done Brady if it had been before the
jury. It clearly implicated Brady as being the one who
wanted to strangle the victim, Brooks. Boblit, according to this
statement, also favored killing him, but he wanted to do it by shooting.
We cannot put ourselves in the place of the jury and assume what their
views would have been as to whether it did or did not matter whether it
was Brady's hands or Boblit's hands that twisted the shirt
about the victim's neck. . . . It would be 'too dogmatic' for us to say
that the jury would not have attached any significance to this evidence in
considering the punishment of the defendant
Brady. |
| [23] | "Not without some doubt, we conclude that the withholding of this
particular confession of Boblit's was prejudicial to the defendant
Brady. . . . |
| [24] | "The appellant's sole claim of prejudice goes to the punishment
imposed. If Boblit's withheld confession had been before the jury, nothing
in it could have reduced the appellant Brady's offense below
murder in the first degree. We, therefore, see no occasion to retry that
issue." 226 Md., at 429-430, 174 A. 2d, at 171. (Italics added.) If
this were a jurisdiction where the jury was not the judge of the law, a
different question would be presented. But since it is, how can the
Maryland Court of Appeals state that nothing in the suppressed confession
could have reduced petitioner's offense "below murder in the first
degree"? If, as a matter of Maryland law, juries in criminal cases could
determine the admissibility of such evidence on the issue of innocence or
guilt, the question would seem to be foreclosed. |
| [25] | But Maryland's constitutional provision making the jury in criminal
cases "the Judges of Law" does not mean precisely what it seems to say.*fn3
The present status of that provision was reviewed recently in Giles v.
State, 229 Md. 370, 183 A. 2d 359, appeal dismissed, 372 U.S.
767, where the several exceptions, added by statute or carved
out by judicial construction, are reviewed. One of those exceptions,
material here, is that "Trial courts have always passed and still pass
upon the admissibility of evidence the jury may consider on the issue of
the innocence or guilt of the accused." 229 Md., at 383, 183 A. 2d, at
365. The cases cited make up a long line going back nearly a century.
Wheeler v. State, 42 Md. 563, 570, stated that instructions to the jury
were advisory only, "except in regard to questions as to what shall be
considered as evidence." And the court "having such right, it follows of
course, that it also has the right to prevent counsel from arguing against
such an instruction." Bell v. State, 57 Md. 108, 120. And see Beard v.
State, 71 Md. 275, 280, 17 A. 1044, 1045; Dick v. State, 107 Md. 11, 21,
68 A. 286, 290. Cf. Vogel v. State, 163 Md. 267, 162 A. 705. We
usually walk on treacherous ground when we explore state law,*fn4
for state courts, state agencies, and state legislatures are its final
expositors under our federal regime. But, as we read the Maryland
decisions, it is the court, not the jury, that passes on the
"admissibility of evidence" pertinent to "the issue of the innocence or
guilt of the accused." Giles v. State, supra. In the present case a
unanimous Court of Appeals has said that nothing in the suppressed
confession "could have reduced the appellant Brady's offense
below murder in the first degree." We read that statement as a ruling on
the admissibility of the confession on the issue of innocence or guilt. A
sporting theory of justice might assume that if the suppressed confession
had been used at the first trial, the judge's ruling that it was not
admissible on the issue of innocence or guilt might have been flouted by
the jury just as might have been done if the court had first admitted a
confession and then stricken it from the record.*fn5
But we cannot raise that trial strategy to the dignity of a constitutional
right and say that the deprival of this defendant of that sporting chance
through the use of a bifurcated
trial (cf. Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241) denies
him due process or violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. |
| [26] | Affirmed. |
| [27] | Separate opinion of MR. JUSTICE WHITE. |
| [28] | 1. The Maryland Court of Appeals declared, "The suppression or
withholding by the State of material evidence exculpatory to an accused is
a violation of due process" without citing the United States Constitution
or the Maryland Constitution which also has a due process clause.*fn*
We therefore cannot be sure which Constitution was invoked by the court
below and thus whether the State, the only party aggrieved by this portion
of the judgment, could even bring the issue here if it desired to do so.
See New York City v. Central Savings Bank, 306 U.S. 661; Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551. But in any event, there is no cross-petition by the State,
nor has it challenged the correctness of the ruling below that a new trial
on punishment was called for by the requirements of due process. In my
view, therefore, the Court should not reach the due process question which
it decides. It certainly is not the case, as it may be suggested, that
without it we would have only a state law question, for assuming the court
below was correct in finding a violation of petitioner's rights in the
suppression of evidence, the federal question he wants decided here still
remains, namely, whether denying him a new trial on guilt as well as
punishment deprives him of equal protection. There is thus a federal
question to deal with in this Court, cf. Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S.
678, wholly
aside from the due process question involving the suppression of evidence.
The majority opinion makes this unmistakably clear. Before dealing with
the due process issue it says, "The question presented is whether
petitioner was denied a federal right when the Court of Appeals restricted
the new trial to the question of punishment." After discussing at some
length and disposing of the suppression matter in federal constitutional
terms it says the question still to be decided is the same as it was
before: "The question remains whether petitioner was denied a
constitutional right when the Court of Appeals restricted his new trial to
the question of punishment." |
| [29] | The result, of course, is that the due process discussion by the Court
is wholly advisory. |
| [30] | 2. In any event the Court's due process advice goes substantially
beyond the holding below. I would employ more confining language and would
not cast in constitutional form a broad rule of criminal discovery.
Instead, I would leave this task, at least for now, to the rulemaking or
legislative process after full consideration by legislators, bench, and
bar. |
| [31] | 3. I concur in the Court's disposition of petitioner's equal
protection argument. |
| [32] | Disposition |
| [33] | 226 Md. 422, 174 A. 2d 167, affirmed. |
| [34] | MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK joins,
dissenting. |
| [35] | I think this case presents only a single federal question: did the
order of the Maryland Court of Appeals granting a new trial, limited to
the issue of punishment, violate petitioner's Fourteenth Amendment right
to equal protection?*fn1
In my opinion an affirmative answer would be
required if the Boblit statement would have been admissible on the issue
of guilt at petitioner's original trial. This indeed seems to be the clear
implication of this Court's opinion. |
| [36] | The Court, however, holds that the Fourteenth Amendment was not
infringed because it considers the Court of Appeals' opinion, and the
other Maryland cases dealing with Maryland's constitutional provision
making juries in criminal cases "the Judges of Law, as well as of fact,"
as establishing that the Boblit statement would not have been admissible
at the original trial on the issue of petitioner's guilt. |
| [37] | But I cannot read the Court of Appeals' opinion with any such
assurance. That opinion can as easily, and perhaps more easily, be read as
indicating that the new trial limitation followed from the Court of
Appeals' concept of its power, under § 645G of the Maryland Post
Conviction Procedure Act, Md. Code, Art. 27 (1960 Cum. Supp.) and Rule 870
of the Maryland Rules of Procedure, to fashion appropriate relief meeting
the peculiar circumstances of this case,*fn2
rather than from the view that the Boblit statement would have been
relevant at the original trial only on the issue of punishment. 226 Md.,
at 430, 174 A. 2d, at 171. This interpretation is indeed fortified by the
Court of Appeals' earlier general discussion as to the admissibility of
third-party confessions, which falls short of saying anything that is
dispositive of
the crucial issue here. 226 Md., at 427-429, 174 A. 2d, at 170.*fn3 |
| [38] | Nor do I find anything in any of the other Maryland cases cited by the
Court (ante, p. 89) which bears on the admissibility vel non of the Boblit
statement on the issue of guilt. None of these cases suggests anything
more relevant here than that a jury may not "overrule" the trial court on
questions relating to the admissibility of evidence. Indeed they are by no
means clear as to what happens if the jury in fact undertakes to do so. In
this very case, for example, the trial court charged that "in the final
analysis the jury are the judges of both the law and the facts, and the
verdict in this case is entirely the jury's responsibility." (Emphasis
added.) |
| [39] | Moreover, uncertainty on this score is compounded by the State's
acknowledgment at the oral argument here that the withheld Boblit
statement would have been admissible at the trial on the issue of guilt.*fn4 |
| [40] | In this state of uncertainty as to the proper answer to the critical
underlying issue of state law, and in view of the fact that the Court of
Appeals did not in terms address
itself to the equal protection question, I do not see how we can properly
resolve this case at this juncture. I think the appropriate course is to
vacate the judgment of the State Court of Appeals and remand the case to
that court for further consideration in light of the governing
constitutional principle stated at the outset of this opinion. Cf.
Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S.
551. |
|
| |
| Opinion Footnotes | |
|
| |
| [41] | *fn1
Neither party suggests that the decision below is not a "final judgment"
within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3), and no attack on the
reviewability of the lower court's judgment could be successfully
maintained. For the general rule that "Final judgment in a criminal case
means sentence. The sentence is the judgment" (Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 212) cannot be applied here. If in fact
the Fourteenth Amendment entitles petitioner to a new trial on the issue
of guilt as well as punishment the ruling below has seriously prejudiced
him. It is the right to a trial on the issue of guilt "that presents a
serious and unsettled question" (Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 547) that "is fundamental to the
further conduct of the case" (United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U.S. 373, 377). This question is "independent of,
and unaffected by" (Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120, 126) what may transpire in a trial at which petitioner can
receive only a life imprisonment or death sentence. It cannot be mooted by
such a proceeding. See Largent v. Texas, 318 U.S. 418, 421-422. Cf. Local No. 438 v. Curry, 371 U.S.
542, 549. |
| [42] | *fn2
Judge Simon E. Sobeloff when Solicitor General put the idea as follows in
an address before the Judicial Conference of the Fourth Circuit on June
29, 1954:
"The Solicitor General is not a neutral, he is an advocate; but an
advocate for a client whose business is not merely to prevail in the
instant case. My client's chief business is not to achieve victory but to
establish justice. We are constantly reminded of the now classic words
penned by one of my illustrious predecessors, Frederick William Lehmann,
that the Government wins its point when justice is done in its
courts." |
| [43] | *fn3
See Dennis, Maryland's Antique Constitutional Thorn, 92 U. of Pa. L. Rev.
34, 39, 43; Prescott, Juries as Judges of the Law: Should the Practice be
Continued, 60 Md. St. Bar Assn. Rept. 246, 253-254. |
| [44] | *fn4
For one unhappy incident of recent vintage see Oklahoma Packing Co. v.
Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co., 309 U.S. 4, that
replaced an earlier opinion in the same case, 309 U.S. 703. |
| [45] | *fn5
"In the matter of confessions a hybrid situation exists. It is the duty of
the Court to determine from the proof, usually taken out of the presence
of the jury, if they were freely and voluntarily made, etc., and
admissible. If admitted, the jury is entitled to hear and consider proof
of the circumstances surrounding their obtention, the better to determine
their weight and sufficiency. The fact that the Court admits them clothes
them with no presumption for the jury's purposes that they are either true
or were freely and voluntarily made. However, after a confession has been
admitted and read to the jury the judge may change his mind and strike it
out of the record. Does he strike it out of the jury's mind?" Dennis,
Maryland's Antique Constitutional Thorn, 92 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 34, 39. See
also Bell v. State, supra, at 120; Vogel v. State, 163 Md., at 272, 162
A., at 706-707. |
| [46] | *fn*
Md. Const., Art. 23; Home Utilities Co., Inc., v. Revere Copper &
Brass, Inc., 209 Md. 610, 122 A. 2d 109; Raymond v. State, 192 Md. 602, 65
A. 2d 285; County Comm'rs of Anne Arundel County v. English, 182 Md. 514,
35 A. 2d 135; Oursler v. Tawes, 178 Md. 471, 13 A. 2d 763. |
|
| |
| Dissent Footnotes | |
|
| |
| [47] | *fn1
I agree with my Brother WHITE that there is no necessity for deciding in
this case the broad due process questions with which the Court deals at
pp. 86-88 of its opinion. |
| [48] | *fn2
Section 645G provides in part: "If the court finds in favor of the
petitioner, it shall enter an appropriate order with respect to the
judgment or sentence in the former proceedings, and any supplementary
orders as to rearraignment, retrial, custody, bail, discharge, correction
of sentence, or other matters that may be necessary and proper." Rule 870
provides that the Court of Appeals "will either affirm or reverse the
judgment from which the appeal was taken, or direct the manner in which it
shall be modified, changed or amended." |
| [49] | *fn3
It is noteworthy that the Court of Appeals did not indicate that it was
limiting in any way the authority of Day v. State, 196 Md. 384, 76 A. 2d
729. In that case two defendants were jointly tried and convicted of
felony murder. Each admitted participating in the felony but accused the
other of the homicide. On appeal the defendants attacked the trial court's
denial of a severance, and the State argued that neither defendant was
harmed by the statements put in evidence at the joint trial because
admission of the felony amounted to admission of guilt of felony murder.
Nevertheless the Court of Appeals found an abuse of discretion and ordered
separate new trials on all issues. |
| [50] | *fn4
In response to a question from the Bench as to whether Boblit's statement,
had it been offered at petitioner's original trial, would have been
admissible for all purposes, counsel for the State, after some colloquy,
stated: "It would have been, yes." |