684
Opinion of the Court
dence "reveal[ing] Robert Farr as a police informant and Mr. Banks' arrest as a set-up." App. 260, ¶ 152 (internal quotation marks omitted). Banks also asserted that the State had concealed "Cook's enormous incentive to testify in a manner favorable to the [prosecution]." Id., at 260, ¶ 153; App. to Pet. for Cert. C6-C7.7 In June 1998, Banks moved for discovery and an evidentiary hearing to gain information from the State on the roles played and trial testimony provided by Farr and Cook. App. 262-266, 282-283, 286. The superintending Magistrate Judge allowed limited discovery regarding Cook, but found insufficient justification for inquiries concerning Farr. Id., at 294-295.
Banks renewed his discovery and evidentiary hearing requests in February 1999. Id., at 2, 300-331. This time, he proffered affidavits from both Farr and Cook to back up his claims that, as to each of these two key witnesses, the prosecution had wrongly withheld crucial exculpatory and impeaching evidence. Id., at 322-331. Farr's affidavit affirmed that Farr had "set Delma up" by proposing the drive to Dallas and informing Deputy Sheriff Huff of the trip. Id., at 329, ¶ 8, 442-443, ¶ 8; supra, at 678. Accounting for his unavailability earlier, Farr stated that less than a year after the Banks trial, he had left Texarkana, first for Oklahoma, then for California, because his police-informant work endangered his life. App. 330-331, 444; Pet. for Cert. 27, n. 12. Cook recalled that in preparation for his Banks trial testimony, he had participated in "three or four . . . practice sessions" at which prosecutors told him to testify "as they wanted [him] to, and that [he] would spend the rest of [his] life in prison if [he] did not." App. 325, ¶¶ 10-11.
On March 4, 1999, the Magistrate Judge issued an order establishing issues for an evidentiary hearing, id., at 340, 346, at which she would consider Banks's claims that the State had withheld "crucial exculpatory and impeaching evi-7 We hereinafter refer to these claims as the Farr Brady and Cook Brady claims respectively. See supra, at 682, n. 5.
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