700
Opinion of the Court
Because Banks had no criminal record, Farr's testimony about Banks's propensity to commit violent acts was crucial to the prosecution. Without that testimony, the State could not have underscored, as it did three times in the penalty phase, that Banks would use the gun fetched in Dallas to "take care" of trouble arising during the robberies. App. 140, 144, 146-147; see supra, at 681. The stress placed by the prosecution on this part of Farr's testimony, uncorrobo-rated by any other witness, belies the State's suggestion that "Farr's testimony was adequately corroborated." Brief for Respondent 22-25. The prosecution's penalty-phase summation, moreover, left no doubt about the importance the State attached to Farr's testimony. What Farr told the jury, the prosecution urged, was "of the utmost significance" to show "[Banks] is a danger to friends and strangers, alike." App. 146.
In Strickler, 527 U. S., at 289, although the Court found "cause" for the petitioner's procedural default of a Brady claim, it found the requisite "prejudice" absent, 527 U. S., at 292-296. Regarding "prejudice," the contrast between Strickler and Banks's case is marked. The witness whose impeachment was at issue in Strickler gave testimony that was in the main cumulative, id., at 292, and hardly significant
sity to commit violent criminal acts, see App. 140, 144, 146-147, not his facilitation of others' criminal acts, see id., at 141 ("[Banks] says, 'I thought I would give [the gun] to them so they could do the robberies.' I don't believe you [the jury] believe that."); id., at 143 ("a man doesn't travel two hundred miles . . . to supply [another] person with a weapon"). The special issue the prosecution addressed focused on what acts Banks would commit, not what harms he might facilitate: "Do you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a probability that the defendant, Delma Banks, Jr., would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?" Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted and emphasis added). It is therefore unsurprising that the prosecution did not rest on Banks's facilitation of others' criminal acts in urging the jury to answer the second special issue (propensity to commit violent criminal acts) in the affirmative.
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