A House of Cards

That’s how the U.S. Supreme Court described the evidence in a murder case that it reversed last week because the prosecution had wrongly concealed other important evidence from the defense and jury.

Factor in that other evidence, the Court held, and the house begins to crumble.

How so?

There was no physical evidence tying the defendant to the murder, only the words of two inmates who were serving time for their own, unrelated cases.

The first inmate, Scott, was the one who first contacted the authorities to implicate the defendant nearly two years after the murder. His story had problems to begin with, but he subsequently gave five more statements, and the story would change each time. By the time he testified as the star witness at trial, his account bore little resemblance to the original version. Notably, he testified that another guy, Hutchinson, had run into the street, flagged down the victim’s car, pulled the victim from his car, and participated in the murder.

What the jury never heard was that Scott had a personal beef with the defendant that Scott had told another inmate about. That statement wasn’t produced at or before trial. Nor did the jury hear from another inmate who said Scott tried to coach him to lie about the defendant. That statement wasn’t produced, either. Nor did the jury get to see Hutchinson’s medical records, which would’ve shown that the man had undergone major knee surgery nine days before the muder. The surgery was to repair a ruptured patellar tendon, which meant that, nine days later, he barely would’ve been able to bend his knee. The prosecution had these medical records before trial, but they didn’t turn them over.

The other inmate, Brown, backed up Scott’s story at trial. Although he’d previously given an inconsistent statement to police, he said he decided to testify against the defendant because his sister knew the victim’s sister. He claimed his decision had nothing to do with helping himself. The prosecutor vouched for that in opening statements and closing arguments, saying there was no deal on the table and that Brown hadn’t asked for anything.

What the jury didn’t hear was that, in fact, Brown had twice sought a deal to reduce his sentence in exchange for testifying against the defendant, and the police had told him they would “talk to the D.A. if he told the truth.” The prosecution had those police notes in their possession, but they didn’t turn them over.

On appeal, the state courts ruled that, even if the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated, the errors were harmless.

But the Supreme Court was having none of that, and it summarily reversed the conviction.