6
Per Curiam
United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667, 682 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 685 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). To begin with, on the Court of Appeals' own assumption, the polygraph results were inadmissible under state law, even for impeachment purposes, absent a stipulation by the parties, see 34 F. 3d, at 875 (citing State v. Ellison, supra), and the parties do not contend otherwise. The information at issue here, then—the results of a polygraph examination of one of the witnesses—is not "evidence" at all. Disclosure of the polygraph results, then, could have had no direct effect on the outcome of trial, because respondent could have made no mention of them either during argument or while questioning witnesses. To get around this problem, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that the information, had it been disclosed to the defense, might have led respondent's counsel to conduct additional discovery that might have led to some additional evidence that could have been utilized. See 34 F. 3d, at 875. Other than expressing a belief that in a deposition Rodney might have confessed to his involvement in the initial stages of the crime—a confession that itself would have been in no way inconsistent with respondent's guilt—the Court of Appeals did not specify what particular evidence it had in mind. Its judgment is based on mere speculation, in violation of the standards we have established.
At trial, respondent's strategy was to discredit Rodney's damaging testimony by suggesting that Rodney was lying in order to downplay his own involvement in the crime. Id., at 872. That strategy did not involve deposing Rodney. It is difficult to see, then, on what basis the Ninth Circuit concluded that respondent's counsel would have prepared in a different manner, or (more important) would have discovered some unspecified additional evidence, merely by disclosure of polygraph results that, as to two questions, were consistent with respondent's preestablished defense.
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