450
Opinion of the Court
C
Next to be considered is the prosecution's list of the cars in the Schwegmann's parking lot at mid-evening after the murder. While its suppression does not rank with the failure to disclose the other evidence discussed here, it would have had some value as exculpation and impeachment, and it counts accordingly in determining whether Bagley's standard of materiality is satisfied. On the police's assumption, argued to the jury, that the killer drove to the lot and left his car there during the heat of the investigation, the list without Kyles's registration would obviously have helped Kyles and would have had some value in countering an argument by the prosecution that a grainy enlargement of a photograph of the crime scene showed Kyles's car in the background. The list would also have shown that the police either knew that it was inconsistent with their informant's second and third statements (in which Beanie described retrieving Kyles's car after the time the list was compiled) or never even bothered to check the informant's story against known fact. Either way, the defense would have had further support for arguing that the police were irresponsible in relying on Beanie to tip them off to the location of evidence damaging to Kyles.
The State argues that the list was neither impeachment nor exculpatory evidence because Kyles could have moved his car before the list was created and because the list does
good faith on at least some of the points of cross-examination mentioned and could have elicited police testimony to blunt the effect of the attack on Burns.
Justice Scalia suggests that we should "gauge" Burns's credibility by observing that the state judge presiding over Kyles's postconviction proceeding did not find Burns's testimony in that proceeding to be convincing, and by noting that Burns has since been convicted for killing Beanie. Post, at 471-472. Of course neither observation could possibly have affected the jury's appraisal of Burns's credibility at the time of Kyles's trials.
Page: Index Previous 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007