Cite as: 514 U. S. 419 (1995)
Scalia, J., dissenting
requires a series of independent materiality evaluations; in fact, the court said just the contrary. See 5 F. 3d, at 817 ("[W]e are not persuaded that it is reasonably probable that the jury would have found in Kyles' favor if exposed to any or all of the undisclosed materials") (emphasis added). If the decision is read, shall we say, cumulatively, it is clear beyond cavil that the court assessed the cumulative effect of the Brady evidence in the context of the whole record. See 5 F. 3d, at 807 (basing its rejection of petitioner's claim on "a complete reading of the record"); id., at 811 ("Rather than reviewing the alleged Brady materials in the abstract, we will examine the evidence presented at trial and how the extra materials would have fit"); id., at 813 ("We must bear [the eyewitness testimony] in mind while assessing the probable effect of other undisclosed information"). It is, in other words, the Court itself which errs in the manner that it accuses the Court of Appeals of erring: failing to consider the material under review as a whole. The isolated snippets it quotes from the decision merely do what the Court's own opinion acknowledges must be done: to "evaluate the tendency and force of the undisclosed evidence item by item; there is no other way." Ante, at 436, n. 10. Finally, the Court falls back on this: "The result reached by the Fifth Circuit majority is compatible with a series of independent materiality evaluations, rather than the cumulative evaluation required by Bagley," ante, at 441. In other words, even though the Fifth Circuit plainly enunciated the correct legal rule, since the outcome it reached would not properly follow from that rule, the Fifth Circuit must in fact (and unbeknownst to itself) have been applying an incorrect legal rule. This effectively eliminates all distinction between mistake in law and mistake in application.
What the Court granted certiorari to review, then, is not a decision on an issue of federal law that conflicts with a decision of another federal or state court; nor even a decision announcing a rule of federal law that because of its novelty
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