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Opinion of the Court
sonable and diligent investigation" mandated by McCleskey to preclude a finding of procedural default when the evidence is in the hands of the State.33
The controlling precedents on "cause" are Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S., at 488, and Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U. S. 214 (1988). As we explained in the latter case:
"If the District Attorney's memorandum was not reasonably discoverable because it was concealed by Putnam County officials, and if that concealment, rather than tactical considerations, was the reason for the failure of petitioner's lawyers to raise the jury challenge in the trial court, then petitioner established ample cause to excuse his procedural default under this Court's precedents." Id., at 222.34
There is no suggestion that tactical considerations played any role in petitioner's failure to raise his Brady claim in state court. Moreover, under Brady an inadvertent nondis-closure has the same impact on the fairness of the proceedings as deliberate concealment. "If the suppression of evidence results in constitutional error, it is because of the character of the evidence, not the character of the prosecutor." Agurs, 427 U. S., at 110.
33 We do not reach, because it is not raised in this case, the impact of a showing by the State that the defendant was aware of the existence of the documents in question and knew, or could reasonably discover, how to obtain them. Although Gray involved a procedurally defaulted Brady claim, in that case, the Court found that the petitioner had made "no attempt to demonstrate cause or prejudice for his default." Gray, 518 U. S., at 162.
34 It is noteworthy that both of the reasons on which we relied in McCleskey to distinguish Amadeo also apply to this case: "This case differs from Amadeo in two crucial respects. First, there is no finding that the State concealed evidence. And second, even if the State intentionally concealed the 21-page document, the concealment would not establish cause here because, in light of McCleskey's knowledge of the information in the document, any initial concealment would not have prevented him from raising the claim in the first federal petition." 499 U. S., at 501-502.
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