420
Syllabus
ality under Bagley imposes a higher burden than the harmless-error standard of Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 623. Fourth, the state's disclosure obligation turns on the cumulative effect of all suppressed evidence favorable to the defense, not on the evidence considered item by item. 473 U. S., at 675, and n. 7. Thus, the prosecutor, who alone can know what is undisclosed, must be assigned the responsibility to gauge the likely net effect of all such evidence and make disclosure when the point of "reasonable probability" is reached. Moreover, that responsibility remains regardless of any failure by the police to bring favorable evidence to the prosecutor's attention. To hold otherwise would amount to a serious change of course from the Brady line of cases. As the more likely reading of the Fifth Circuit's opinion shows a series of independent materiality evaluations, rather than the cumulative evaluation required by Bagley, it is questionable whether that court evaluated the significance of the undisclosed evidence in this case under the correct standard. Pp. 432-441. 2. Because the net effect of the state-suppressed evidence favoring Kyles raises a reasonable probability that its disclosure would have produced a different result at trial, the conviction cannot stand, and Kyles is entitled to a new trial. Pp. 441-454. (a) A review of the suppressed statements of eyewitnesses—whose testimony identifying Kyles as the killer was the essence of the State's case—reveals that their disclosure not only would have resulted in a markedly weaker case for the prosecution and a markedly stronger one for the defense, but also would have substantially reduced or destroyed the value of the State's two best witnesses. Pp. 441-445. (b) Similarly, a recapitulation of the suppressed statements made to the police by Beanie—who, by the State's own admission, was essential to its investigation and, indeed, "made the case" against Kyles— reveals that they were replete with significant inconsistencies and affirmatively self-incriminating assertions, that Beanie was anxious to see Kyles arrested for the murder, and that the police had a remarkably uncritical attitude toward Beanie. Disclosure would therefore have raised opportunities for the defense to attack the thoroughness and even the good faith of the investigation, and would also have allowed the defense to question the probative value of certain crucial physical evidence. Pp. 445-449. (c) While the suppression of the prosecution's list of the cars at the crime scene after the murder does not rank with the failure to disclose the other evidence herein discussed, the list would have had some value as exculpation of Kyles, whose license plate was not included thereon, and as impeachment of the prosecution's arguments to the jury that the killer left his car at the scene during the investigation and that a grainy
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