Cite as: 527 U. S. 263 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
In summary, petitioner has established cause for failing to raise a Brady claim prior to federal habeas because (a) the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence; (b) petitioner reasonably relied on the prosecution's open file policy as fulfilling the prosecution's duty to disclose such evidence; and (c) the Commonwealth confirmed petitioner's reliance on the open file policy by asserting during state habeas proceedings that petitioner had already received "everything known to the government." 35 We need not decide in this case whether any one or two of these factors would be sufficient to constitute cause, since the combination of all three surely suffices.
IV
The differing judgments of the District Court and the Court of Appeals attest to the difficulty of resolving the issue of prejudice. Unlike the Fourth Circuit, we do not believe that "the Stolzfus [sic] materials would have provided little or no help to Strickler in either the guilt or sentencing phases of the trial." App. 425. Without a doubt, Stoltzfus' testimony was prejudicial in the sense that it made petition-er's conviction more likely than if she had not testified, and discrediting her testimony might have changed the outcome of the trial.
That, however, is not the standard that petitioner must satisfy in order to obtain relief. He must convince us that "there is a reasonable probability" that the result of the trial would have been different if the suppressed documents had been disclosed to the defense. As we stressed in Kyles: "[T]he adjective is important. The question is not whether the defendant would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its ab-35 Because our opinion does not modify Brady, we reject respondent's contention that we announce a "new rule" today. See Bousley v. United States, 523 U. S. 614 (1998).
289
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