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Constitution of the United States/Art. I/Sec. 2/Clause 2 Qualifications
Agurs left open questions about how courts should evaluate the materiality of undisclosed evidence. The Court addressed those questions in the 1985 case United States v. Bagley.[1] In Bagley, the Court established a uniform test for materiality, holding that evidence is material if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.[2] That materiality standard, also found in contexts outside of Brady inquiries,[3] applies not only to exculpatory material, but also to material that would be relevant to the impeachment of witnesses.[4] Thus, in a case where inconsistent earlier statements by a witness to an abduction were not disclosed, the Court weighed the specific effect that impeachment of the witness would have had on establishing the required elements of the crime and the punishment, concluding that there was no reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different result.[5]
- ↑ 473 U.S. 667 (1985).
- ↑ 473 U.S. at 682. Put differently, a Brady violation requires a 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. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 435 (1995). Accord Smith v. Cain, 565 U.S. 73 (2012) (prior inconsistent statements of sole eyewitness withheld from defendant; state lacked other evidence sufficient to sustain confidence in the verdict independently).
- ↑ See United States v. Malenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858 (1982) (testimony made unavailable by Government deportation of witnesses); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (incompetence of counsel).
- ↑ 473 U.S. at 676-77. See also Wearry v. Cain, 136 S. Ct. 1002, 1007 (2016) (per curiam) (finding that a state post-conviction court had improperly (1) evaluated the materiality of each piece of evidence in isolation, rather than cumulatively; (2) emphasized reasons jurors might disregard the new evidence, while ignoring reasons why they might not; and (3) failed to consider the statements of two impeaching witnesses).
- ↑ Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 296 (1999); see also Turner v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1885, 1894 (2017) (holding that, when considering the withheld evidence in the context of the entire record, the evidence was "too little, too weak, or too distant" from the central evidentiary issues in the case to meet Brady's standards for materiality).
