Byrd v. State

241 A.3d 913, 471 Md. 359

• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
• Decided: November 20, 2020
• Docket: 4/20
• Status: Published

Opinion

Dale K. Byrd v. State of Maryland, No. 4, September Term, 2020

CRIMINAL LAW – DISCOVERY Prior to a defendant entering a pretrial guilty plea, the State is under no constitutional obligation to provide a defendant with evidence that could be used to impeach a State’s witness.

CRIMINAL LAW – DISCOVERY The failure by the State to provide evidence to the defendant, prior to pleading guilty, that could be used to impeach a State’s witness does not constitute a misrepresentation by the State regarding the credibility of that witness under Brady v. United States. Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case Nos. 110085017, 110235023 Argued: October 5, 2020 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND

No. 4

September Term, 2020

DALE K. BYRD

v.

STATE OF MARYLAND

Barbera, C.J., McDonald Watts Hotten Getty Booth Biran

JJ.

Opinion by Barbera, C.J.

Filed: November 20, 2020

Pursuant to Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document is authentic.

Suzanne Johnson 2020-11-20 10:20-05:00

Suzanne C. Johnson, Clerk In March 2011, Petitioner, Dale K. Byrd, pled guilty at a hearing in the Circuit Court

for Baltimore City to having committed, in two separate cases, the crime of possession of

heroin with intent to distribute it. Petitioner was sentenced to concurrent sentences of

twelve years’ incarceration, all but four years suspended, and three years’ probation. In

2018, upon completion of the sentences and probation, Petitioner filed in the Circuit Court

for Baltimore City a petition for issuance of a writ of error coram nobis. The circuit court

denied the petition. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the decision of the circuit court.

Petitioner now turns to this Court for the coram nobis relief he heretofore has been

unable to obtain. He argues that the State failed to disclose to him, prior to his entry of the

two guilty pleas, information relating to alleged misconduct of several of the officers

involved in the arrests that prompted the subsequent charges and pleas. We are asked to

determine whether the nondisclosure of that evidence of misconduct—which related not to

the officers’ actions in Petitioner’s arrests but instead to their conduct in other cases—is

sufficient to render the pleas involuntary.1

Petitioner contends that the nondisclosure of the officers’ misconduct constitutes a

suppression of impeachment evidence under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and

an implicit misrepresentation under Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1970). We hold,

first, that the Supreme Court’s holding in United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622 (2002)

establishes that the right to impeachment evidence under Brady v. Maryland is exclusively

1 As the Supreme Court has done, for the purposes of a guilty plea we will use the term voluntary as meaning intelligent, knowing, sufficiently aware, and free from coercion. See, e.g., United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 629 (2002). a trial right. Thus, the State was under no obligation to disclose the potential evidence of

misconduct to Petitioner prior to trial. We also hold that the nondisclosure did not

constitute a misrepresentation in violation of Brady v. United States, as the State made no

representation to Petitioner regarding the credibility of the officers at issue, and the alleged

officer misconduct bore no relation to the charges to which Petitioner pled guilty.

Therefore, the nondisclosure of the information did not render Petitioner’s guilty pleas

involuntary.

Consequently, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals upholding

the circuit court’s denial of coram nobis relief.

I.

Facts and Procedural History

The dispositive facts in this case are not in dispute. On March 11, 2011, Petitioner

pled guilty in the two separate cases, noted above, to possession of heroin with the intent

to distribute. As to the first case, No. 110085017, the State proffered the following facts

in support of the plea.

On March 19, 2010, between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., several Baltimore City

police officers, including Officer Daniel Hersl, observed the 1700 block of Darley Avenue

in Baltimore City from a covert location. The officers observed Petitioner standing on the

porch of 1742 Darley Avenue, a vacant dwelling, when several unknown males approached

him. Following a conversation between Petitioner and the unknown individuals, Petitioner

retrieved small objects from beneath the molding cap of a pole on the porch, which he

2 exchanged with those individuals for U.S. currency. The officers suspected that the objects

contained a controlled dangerous substance. After several transactions, Petitioner walked

across the street and entered the vacant dwelling at 1749 Darley Avenue. After

approximately one minute, the officers observed him return to 1742 Darley Avenue and

place several items under the molding cap.

Suspecting that Petitioner was using 1749 Darley Avenue as a stash house, the

officers placed him under arrest. The officers then recovered three clear gel caps of

suspected heroin from beneath the molding cap at 1742 Darley Avenue, in addition to

seventy-five gel caps of suspected heroin from the living room of 1749 Darley Avenue.

The evidence was submitted to the Evidence Control Unit where it tested positive as heroin,

a Schedule I narcotic. The State indicated that, if called to testify at trial, the officers would

identify Petitioner and state that the amount of heroin and the circumstances under which

it was recovered indicated that it was not for personal use and that Petitioner intended to

distribute it.

The State then proffered the following facts in support of Petitioner’s guilty plea in

the second case, No. 110235023. On August 9, 2010, at 6:50 p.m., Baltimore City officers

received information from a confidential informant that a male was selling narcotics from

a vacant house at 1749 Darley Avenue. Officer Thomas Wilson went to the 1700 block of

Darley Avenue and observed Petitioner, matching the description given by the informant,

speaking with an unknown individual. Petitioner then went to the porch of 1749 Darley

Avenue and retrieved suspected narcotics from the front doorframe, which he then handed

3 to the unknown individual. Officer Wilson arrested Petitioner and recovered $356 from

his person. He also retrieved one gel cap from the doorframe, which later tested positive

as containing heroin. The State indicated that if called to testify at trial, the officer would

identify Petitioner and state that the circumstances under which the heroin was recovered

indicated that it was not for personal use and that Petitioner intended to distribute it.

In both cases Petitioner affirmed under oath to the court that the facts as proffered

by the State were true. The court found there to be a factual basis in both cases and accepted

Petitioner’s pleas. The court then sentenced Petitioner to twelve years of incarceration on

both counts to run concurrently, with all but four years suspended, in addition to three years

of probation.

Undisclosed Misconduct of Officer Hersl and Officer Wilson

The first case

In relation to the arrest on March 19, 2010, Officer Daniel Hersl was one of the

observing officers and swore out the Statement of Charges, so he likely would have been

called to testify had the case gone to trial. Petitioner now claims that there were Internal

Investigations Division records that impugned Officer Hersl’s credibility that were not

provided to Petitioner prior to his pleas. A Baltimore Sun article2 from 2018, which

Petitioner introduced as an exhibit at his coram nobis hearing, stated that Hersl had

2 Justin Fenton, Baltimore Police Sergeant Named by Witness in Corruption Trial Was Cited for Misconduct in Past, BALT. SUN (Feb. 9, 2018), https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-wilson-termination-20180202- story.html [https://perma.cc/U95V-AB45]. 4 “amassed dozens of complaints” that resulted in settlements in three civil suits against him.

The Sun article further indicated that Officer Hersl, a former member of the infamous

Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force, was also facing trial for his involvement in a criminal

racketeering enterprise.

At the coram nobis hearing, Petitioner also submitted several orders from unrelated

cases in which three judges3 all independently determined, after in camera review of

Officer Hersl’s internal investigations records, that there was information in the records

that should have been discoverable to other criminal defendants. However, the State had

not informed Petitioner of any of this prior to his guilty plea in the first case against him.4

The second case

In relation to the arrest on August 9, 2010, Officer Wilson was the sole observing,

arresting, and submitting officer. He also swore out the Statement of Charges. Therefore,

Officer Wilson likely would have been the only officer to testify for the State had the case

gone to trial. The Baltimore Sun article Petitioner relied upon during his coram nobis

hearing also contained allegations relating to Officer Wilson. The article explained that

the Baltimore Police Department’s Internal Investigations Division recommended that

Officer Wilson be terminated in 2005 after he allegedly entered a home without a warrant,

3 The orders were issued by Judge Nugent of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Judge Hollander of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, and Judge Prevas, formerly of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. 4 Although Officer Hersl was only indicted for racketeering in 2017—several years after Petitioner’s guilty pleas—Petitioner’s coram nobis counsel argued that it is likely that Officer Hersl had been engaging in that conduct for some time prior to the charges. 5 obtained a warrant afterwards, and then falsified paperwork to suggest that the warrant had

been obtained prior to entering the home. The article stated that the police trial board

subsequently found him guilty of misconduct and neglect of duty, recommended that he be

suspended for fifteen days without pay, and issued a “severe letter of reprimand.” The

article also indicated that in 2003 a federal judge5 had accused Officer Wilson of lying in

court. The State likewise had not informed Petitioner of any of Officer Wilson’s alleged

misconduct prior to Petitioner’s guilty plea in the second case against him.

For purposes of evaluating Petitioner’s arguments, and in the interest of judicial

economy, we will assume that some or all of the allegations of police misconduct against

Officers Hersl and Wilson are detailed in the officers’ internal investigations records and

were valid and well-founded.6 We do note, however, that neither the circuit court nor the

Court of Special Appeals made any such express findings.

Coram Nobis Proceedings

On January 25, 2018, after completing his sentence and period of probation,

Petitioner filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis with respect to both convictions in

the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Precipitating this petition is his involvement in a

criminal matter now pending in the United States District Court for the District of

5 Coram nobis counsel identified the federal judge as Judge Andre Davis, then of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

Additional evidence substantiating Petitioner’s claims as to the contents of the files 6

would not disturb our conclusion. Therefore, we decline Petitioner’s request for a limited remand under Maryland Rule 8-604 to further develop the record. 6 Maryland, in which Petitioner has pled guilty but has yet to receive his sentence. His plea

agreement in that case indicates that the government will suggest a sentence of between

ten and fifteen years of incarceration at the sentencing hearing. According to Petitioner, if

he is successful in vacating the two pleas at issue here, the federal court may be more likely

to sentence him to the minimum of ten years.

Petitioner argued in his coram nobis petition that the undisclosed evidence of police

misconduct detailed in the Baltimore Sun article and suggested by the three judges’

findings regarding Officer Hersl’s internal investigations files rendered his waiver of his

right to trial involuntary and constituted a violation of Brady v. Maryland. The State filed

an answer to his petition on February 26, 2018. Petitioner then filed an amended petition

on April 4, 2018. That same day the circuit court held the coram nobis hearing.

At the hearing, Petitioner testified that he would have considered the undisclosed

information in relation to Officers Wilson and Hersl important and that had he known about

it he would not have pled guilty to the charges. Petitioner did not, however, indicate that

he was innocent of the charges. The State conceded that the potential for increased

sentencing in the federal matter constituted a significant collateral consequence and that

there were no other mechanisms by which Petitioner could challenge his guilty pleas. The

State did dispute, though, whether a constitutional or fundamental right was in question.

After the hearing the parties submitted supplemental briefing.

The circuit court denied Petitioner’s petition for writ of error coram nobis, finding

that none of his constitutional or fundamental rights were violated. Petitioner then

7 appealed that denial to the Court of Special Appeals. In a reported opinion, dated

December 19, 2019, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s denial of

coram nobis relief.7 Byrd v. State, 243 Md. App. 616 (2019). We granted certiorari to

determine whether the nondisclosure of the evidence of police misconduct constituted

either a violation of the State’s disclosure obligations under Brady v. Maryland or a

misrepresentation under Brady v. United States, thereby invalidating Petitioner’s guilty

pleas.8 For reasons that follow, we answer those questions in the negative and affirm the

judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.

7 The Court of Special Appeals initially issued an opinion dated November 1, 2019, also affirming the denial of relief. Petitioner then filed a motion for reconsideration. By way of order issued December 18, 2019, the Court of Special Appeals denied Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration, withdrew its November 1 opinion, and indicated that a new opinion would be filed forthwith. 8 Petitioner framed the issues in his petition for writ of certiorari as follows: 1. Did the Court of Special Appeals err in holding that Petitioner’s guilty pleas were valid even though the State did not disclose material impeachment evidence about key police witnesses (including evidence of lying in federal court and falsifying a warrant)? a. Did the non-disclosure of the evidence violate the State’s constitutional discovery obligation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and its progeny? b. Did the non-disclosure of the evidence constitute a misrepresentation by the State rendering the pleas invalid under Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1972), and its progeny? We interpret the two sub-questions to be collectively exhaustive of how the first question could be resolved in favor of Petitioner in this case. In other words, there is no residual due process or other constitutional or fundamental right at play here that is not likewise waived in the context of a guilty plea. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243 (1969) (enumerating the constitutional rights waived through a guilty plea). Therefore, we frame this appeal as primarily addressing only the two sub-issues. 8 II.

Discussion

“‘Because of the “extraordinary” nature’ of a coram nobis remedy, we review a

court’s decision to grant or deny such a petition for abuse of discretion.” Hyman v. State,

463 Md. 656, 674 (2019) (quoting State v. Rich, 454 Md. 448, 470–71 (2017)). “In

determining abuse of discretion, however, an appellate court ‘should not disturb the coram

nobis court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, while legal determinations

shall be reviewed de novo.’” Id. (quoting Rich, 454 Md. at 471).

A petition for writ of error coram nobis is a common law means through which a

person who has been convicted of a crime but is no longer incarcerated, on parole, or on

probation can challenge the validity of the conviction based on an alleged error of fact or

law. See generally Skok v. State, 361 Md. 52 (2000) (discussing the history of the writ and

extending its application to errors of law). In order for a court to issue a writ of error coram

nobis, the petitioner must establish that the following five conditions obtain:

[1] “the grounds for challenging the criminal conviction must be of a constitutional, jurisdictional, or fundamental character”; [2] the petitioner has . . . overcome the [burden of the] “presumption of regularity” in the criminal case; [3] “the coram nobis petitioner must be suffering or facing significant collateral consequences from the conviction”; [4] the issue must not be waived; and [5] there may be no other “statutory or common law remedy [ ] then available.”

Hyman, 463 Md. at 672 (quoting State v. Smith, 443 Md. 572, 599 (2015)) (final alteration

in original).

9 The only condition that the State disputes here is whether the grounds for

challenging Petitioner’s guilty pleas and convictions in this case are of a constitutional or

fundamental character.9 “A guilty plea operates as a waiver of important rights, and is

valid only if done voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, ‘with sufficient awareness of

the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.’” Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 545 U.S. 175,

183 (2005) (quoting Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748 (1970)); see also Ruiz, 536

U.S. at 628–29 (“When a defendant pleads guilty he or she, of course, forgoes not only a

fair trial, but also other accompanying constitutional guarantees.”) (citation omitted).

These important rights include defendants’ Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to

testify against themselves, in addition to their Sixth Amendment rights to a fair and

impartial jury trial and to confront witnesses testifying against them. See Boykin, 395 U.S.

at 243. Thus, to the extent Petitioner can establish that his guilty pleas were not voluntary,

he will have established that he was denied important constitutional rights and accordingly

will have met his burden under the first prong of the coram nobis analysis as outlined

above.

A. Brady v. Maryland

Brady v. Maryland and its progeny guarantee to a criminal defendant who stands

trial the right to receive material exculpatory and impeachment evidence in the possession

9 Given our holding that Petitioner has not satisfied his burden as to the constitutional or fundamental character of his grounds for challenge, we need not engage in an independent analysis of any of the other necessary conditions for the issuance of a writ of error coram nobis. 10 of the State. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83; Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150

(1972). Petitioner argues that this authority entitled him to receive the undisclosed

information relating to the police misconduct of Officers Hersl and Wilson prior to his

guilty pleas. He contends that the undisclosed information indicates a lack of honesty and

could have been used at trial to impeach the officers’ credibility. Given that he was

deprived of this information, argues the Petitioner, his guilty pleas were not voluntary.

Unfortunately for Petitioner, the Supreme Court held eighteen years ago, in United

States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622 (2002), that the right to information under Brady v. Maryland

is a trial right, and is accordingly waived along with the other constitutional guarantees that

a defendant forgoes when waiving the right to trial. In Ruiz, immigration agents found 30

kilograms of marijuana in Ms. Ruiz’s luggage. Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 625. Federal prosecutors

presented her with a “fast track” plea bargain under which she would waive indictment,

trial, and appeal in exchange for the government’s recommendation of a two-level

downward sentencing departure. Id. By accepting the plea, Ms. Ruiz also would have

‘“waiv[ed] [her] right’ to receive ‘impeachment information relating to any informants or

other witnesses’ as well as the right to receive information supporting any affirmative

defense [she would raise] if the case [went] to trial.” Id. (citation omitted). Ruiz refused

to accept the plea on the basis of the last-mentioned waiver and was indicted for unlawful

drug possession. Id. She then pled guilty in the absence of any agreement with the

government. Id. at 625–26. At the sentencing hearing she asked the court to grant her the

two-level departure outlined in the proposed plea, but the court denied the departure. Id.

11 at 626. Ruiz appealed her sentence, which the Ninth Circuit vacated, finding that the fast

track plea’s waiver of the right to impeachment information was unconstitutional. Id.

The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Constitution does not “require federal

prosecutors, before entering into a binding plea agreement with a criminal defendant, to

disclose ‘impeachment information relating to any informants or other witnesses.’” Id. at

625 (citation omitted). The Court cited three considerations undergirding this ruling.

“First, impeachment information is special in relation to the fairness of a trial, not in

respect to whether a plea is voluntary (‘knowing,’ ‘intelligent,’ and ‘sufficient[ly] aware’).”

Id. at 629 (alteration in original). “Second, . . . this Court has found that the Constitution,

in respect to a defendant’s awareness of relevant circumstances, does not require complete

knowledge of the relevant circumstances.” Id. at 630 (citations omitted). Rather, it

“permits a court to accept a guilty plea, with its accompanying waiver of various

constitutional rights, despite various forms of misapprehension under which a defendant

might labor.” Id. (citations omitted); see also Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. at 757 (“A

defendant is not entitled to withdraw his plea merely because he discovers long after the

plea has been accepted that his calculus misapprehended the quality of the State’s case.”).

The third reason offered by the Ruiz Court was that the interests of due process, on

balance, weighed against a requirement that the defendant receive all possible

impeachment evidence in relation to the prosecution’s witnesses prior to trial. Ruiz, 536

U.S. at 631–32. On the one hand, given that the fast track plea agreement at issue still

required the prosecution to provide the defendant with evidence of factual innocence, the

12 value of also receiving impeachment evidence—which itself varies widely in importance—

was minimal. Id. at 631. On the other hand was the weighty concern that “a constitutional

obligation to provide impeachment information during plea bargaining, prior to entry of a

guilty plea, could seriously interfere with the Government’s interest in securing those guilty

pleas that are factually justified, desired by defendants, and help to secure the efficient

administration of justice.” Id.

In an attempt to distinguish this case, Petitioner relies on Justice Thomas’s

concurrence in Ruiz, which suggests that the holding of the majority opinion “turns in some

part on the ‘degree of help’ such information would provide to the defendant at the plea

stage, a distinction that is neither necessary nor accurate.” Id. at 633 (Thomas, J.,

concurring in the judgment) (internal citation omitted). Justice Thomas went on to state

that “[t]o the extent that the Court is implicitly drawing a line based on a flawed

characterization about the usefulness of certain types of information, I can only concur in

the judgment.” Id. at 633–34. Thus, under Justice Thomas’s view, the majority opinion in

Ruiz leaves open the possibility that some evidence may be so crucial as to imbue the

defendant with a pretrial right thereto under Brady v. Maryland. Petitioner shares this view

and argues that this is such a case, given that the officers “played instrumental roles in each

of Mr. Byrd’s cases” and the undisclosed evidence “cut to the core of the officers’

veracity.”

We do not read the Ruiz Court’s majority opinion as leaving open any such

possibility. It is true that the majority opinion twice mentions the often limited and variable

13 nature of the value of impeachment evidence, but the majority does so merely in support

of its conclusion that there is no pretrial right to impeachment evidence under Brady v.

Maryland. See id. at 630, 631. Nowhere in that opinion does Justice Breyer, writing for

the majority, indicate that in some cases the evidence may be so important as to disrupt this

straightforward and unequivocal holding.

Ruiz clearly establishes that the right to impeachment evidence under Brady v.

Maryland in all cases is exclusively a trial right. Even assuming that the undisclosed

misconduct information in this case were actually critical to Petitioner’s case, it would still

be fundamentally incapable of converting that trial right into a pretrial right. Although

Justice Thomas’s concurrence reads the majority’s holding in a different light, this

principle is the very thrust of his concurring opinion.10

Under Brady v. Maryland the petitioner must establish that the undisclosed

evidence: (1) would have been favorable to the defense at trial, (2) was suppressed or

withheld, and (3) was material. See Yearby v. State, 414 Md. 708, 717 (2010). Thus, the

10 The Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Association, as amicus curiae, argues that the holding in Ruiz was limited to the facts of the case, and quotes the following in support: “in the context of this agreement, the need for this information is more closely related to the fairness of a trial than to the voluntariness of the plea.” Ruiz, 536 U.S. at 633. Amicus curiae overlooks the fact that there were two separate holdings in Ruiz, the latter relating to whether the fast track plea agreement’s requirement that the defendant waive the “right” to receive information relating to affirmative defenses was also valid. The quoted statement was made solely in relation to that holding. There is no such limitation with respect to the Court’s holding on impeachment evidence. Amicus curiae also cites to recent legislative efforts designed “to ensure that relevant information is disclosed to defendants before trial.” We deal here only with what is mandated by the Constitution, not with policy decisions of the state legislature on the unrelated topic of disclosure involving in-person witness testimony. 14 importance of the undisclosed evidence to the defendant’s case is indeed a consideration

under Brady v. Maryland, as it is critical to the determination of materiality under the final

prong of the test. The Supreme Court has explained that “evidence is material only if there

is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result

of the proceeding would have been different. A ‘reasonable probability’ is a probability

sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S.

667, 682 (1985). Thus, Petitioner’s claim that the undisclosed evidence in this case would

have been important to him and may have affected his decision to plead guilty—which,

theoretically, could have affected his guilty verdict—would in fact be relevant to the

analysis under Brady v. Maryland. However, as Brady v. Maryland simply does not apply

to impeachment evidence prior to trial, determining whether Brady v. Maryland’s third

prong is satisfied in the context of a guilty plea is a purely academic exercise.

Given our holding, we need not determine with precision how important the

undisclosed evidence may have been to Petitioner’s case. However, we do reject

Petitioner’s analogy to the writ of actual innocence context, where this Court has declined

to adopt an “overly rigid” distinction between “impeaching” and “merely impeaching”

evidence. State v. Hunt, 443 Md. 238, 263–64 (2015). Petitioner is correct that the Court

in Hunt acknowledged that, at least within the context of the standard for granting a new

trial based on newly discovered evidence, the hearing judge is free to consider both

impeachment evidence that is directly related to the case and that which is not. See id.; see

also Snead v. State, 224 Md. App. 99, 110 (2015) (holding that “[i]n light of Hunt, . . . a

15 petition [for writ of actual innocence] is not necessarily doomed, even on a hearing on the

merits, solely because it depends on evidence that ‘merely’ impeaches a witness’s

testimony”) (citation omitted). Under Hunt’s analysis, assuming it has any application

here,11 it would thus not be fatal to Petitioner’s claim that the evidence of alleged police

misconduct was wholly unrelated to Petitioner’s case. The hearing judge would still have

the discretion to consider it as impeachment evidence as it bore in relation to the validity

of his pleas.

But this case does not turn on any distinction, or lack thereof, between “impeaching”

and “merely impeaching” evidence. Petitioner’s claim under Brady v. Maryland instead

turns on the distinction between impeachment evidence and exculpatory evidence.

Impeachment evidence writ large under Ruiz, no matter how important, is treated

differently than exculpatory evidence, and the prosecution is not required to produce it to

the defendant prior to trial. Accord United States v. Wilkins, 943 F. Supp. 2d 248 (D. Mass.

2013) (finding that Ruiz did not require the prosecutor to disclose the prosecution’s

chemist’s extensive history of fraud prior to the defendants pleading guilty to narcotics

charges because it would not have constituted exculpatory evidence), aff’d, 754 F.3d 24

(1st Cir. 2014), and aff’d sub nom. United States v. Merritt, 755 F.3d 6 (1st Cir. 2014).

We also reject Petitioner’s intimation that there is no real or meaningful difference

between exculpatory and impeachment evidence. Not surprisingly, Petitioner cites to no

11 We question whether Hunt’s analysis is relevant in this context, considering that, as noted by the Court of Special Appeals, Hunt dealt with a (post)trial right, not a pretrial right. 16 authority that could be read to support this bald assertion, and we decline to depart from

well-established precedent distinguishing the two. E.g., Adams v. State, 165 Md. App. 352,

380–81 (2005) (“Exculpatory evidence is the sort of thing that may be offered by the

defense as substantive evidence on the ultimate merits. Impeachment evidence, by

contrast, is a more peripheral thing. It may assist the defense in its cross-examination of

an adverse witness. It is not, however, exculpatory per se. It is not even relevant until the

witness testifies, whereas exculpatory evidence is always relevant.”).

Finally, we find it significant, though not dispositive, that Petitioner expressly

affirmed under oath that the facts proffered by the State at the guilty plea hearing were true.

At no point during the course of this case has he suggested that in doing so he was not

being honest or that he is in fact innocent of the charges. As the Supreme Court stated in

Brady v. Maryland, we “find no requirement in the Constitution that a defendant must be

permitted to disown his solemn admissions in open court that he committed the act with

which he is charged simply because it later develops that the State would have had a weaker

case than the defendant had thought.” 397 U.S. at 757. Brady v. Maryland has no

application in this case, and Petitioner cannot rely upon it to invalidate his guilty pleas.12

12 The State also argues that coram nobis counsel failed to identify specific evidence that would have been discoverable in Petitioner’s cases, and takes issue with the fact that coram nobis counsel did not request review of the officers’ internal investigations files. We need not reach these potential issues, nor Petitioner’s responses, as our holding is not in any way tied to the actions of coram nobis counsel below. 17 B. Brady v. United States

We turn next to Petitioner’s argument that even if Ruiz forecloses the application of

Brady v. Maryland, the State’s failure to provide him with the impeachment evidence

against Officers Hersl and Wilson, while simultaneously holding them out as credible

witnesses for the State, constituted a misrepresentation under Brady v. United States. That

misrepresentation, argues Petitioner, rendered his guilty pleas involuntary. We likewise

hold that Petitioner is unable to rely upon the principles espoused in Brady v. United States,

given that the State never actually made any representation to Petitioner regarding the

credibility of its witnesses. Moreover, even were we inclined to find that the State’s

conduct in this case amounted to some sort of implicit misrepresentation, the information

that the State did not disclose to Petitioner had no connection to Petitioner’s case.

In Brady v. United States, the Court cited with approval the following standard for

determining whether a guilty plea is voluntary:

[A] plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of the direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to him by the court, prosecutor, or his own counsel, must stand unless induced by threats (or promises to discontinue improper harassment), misrepresentation (including unfulfilled or unfulfillable promises), or perhaps by promises that are by their nature improper as having no proper relationship to the prosecutor’s business (e.g. bribes).

Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. at 755 (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (citation

omitted).

Petitioner seizes on the exception for pleas induced by misrepresentations, arguing

that “the State, prior to Mr. Byrd pleading guilty, implicitly held out the officers as credible

18 witnesses who were untarnished by findings to the contrary.” Petitioner argues that by not

disclosing to him the various instances of the misconduct of Officers Hersl and Wilson, the

State thus made an implicit misrepresentation regarding their credibility. Petitioner claims

that this misrepresentation in turn induced him to plead guilty involuntarily.

The record does not show—and Petitioner does not contend—that at any point the

State made any affirmative statements to him or his counsel regarding the credibility of the

officers that it intended to call at trial. Petitioner cites to no authority for the proposition

that this seemingly commonplace absence of any such statement by the State to a defendant

can constitute a misrepresentation. Instead, Petitioner strings together authority from

several distinct factual and legal contexts and asks this Court to create new law.

Petitioner relies primarily on United States v. Fisher, 711 F.3d 460 (4th Cir. 2013),

wherein the Fourth Circuit held that the defendant’s guilty plea was not voluntary. There,

one of the arresting officers later pled guilty to deliberately including false statements in

the sworn affidavit that was used as the sole basis to obtain the search warrant that led to

Fisher’s charges. Fisher, 711 F.3d at 462–63. The Fisher court cited to the First Circuit’s

opinion in Ferrara v. United States for the proposition that:

[T]o set aside a plea as involuntary, a defendant who was fully aware of the direct consequences of the plea must show that (1) “some egregiously impermissible conduct (say, threats, blatant misrepresentations, or untoward blandishments by government agents) antedated the entry of his plea” and (2) “the misconduct influenced his decision to plead guilty or, put another way, that it was material to that choice.”

Id. at 465 (quoting Ferrara v. United States, 456 F.3d 278, 290 (1st Cir. 2006)) (some

emphasis added).

19 Applying this standard to Petitioner’s case, and assuming arguendo that the State

made an implicit misrepresentation to Petitioner merely by offering witnesses for trial

without providing him with the police misconduct information, that conduct was not

“egregiously impermissible” and that implicit misrepresentation certainly was not

“blatant.” Thus, Petitioner’s case fails to meet the first prong of the standard articulated in

Fisher, and we need not reach the second. The Fourth Circuit in Fisher also acknowledged

that the court was compelled to hold that the plea was involuntary because it was an

“extraordinary case” that presented “highly uncommon circumstances in which gross

police misconduct [went] to the heart of the prosecution’s case.” Id. at 462, 466. Simply

put, Petitioner’s case is not an extraordinary one, and the alleged misconduct that Petitioner

relies upon did not go to the heart of his case.

Fisher is further distinguishable from this case on two factual grounds. First, in

Fisher, the police officer made assertions in a sworn affidavit that he later admitted were

not true. Id. at 462–63. There is nothing to indicate that the State made any statements,

sworn or otherwise, to Petitioner regarding the general credibility of Officers Wilson or

Hersl. Second, the misrepresentations in the affidavit in Fisher formed the foundation for

the search warrant that led to the discovery of the evidence substantiating Fisher’s charges.

Id. Thus, Fisher’s plea was not involuntary merely because the officer’s credibility could

have been impeached. Rather, the constitutionality of the search leading to his charges was

impugned. Here, the alleged misconduct of Officers Hersl and Wilson that Petitioner relies

upon was wholly unrelated to the charges in the two cases underlying Petitioner’s current

20 claim, and he adduced no evidence that directly related to anything that the officers did

with respect to his arrests. Petitioner’s appeal to Ferrara is likewise unavailing, as it puts

forth the very standard adopted in Fisher and pertained to affirmative misrepresentations

and withholding of evidence going to the heart of Ferrara’s case.13 See Ferrara, 456 F.3d

at 290, 293.

It is also worth noting that the court in Fisher based its decision in part on the

importance of deterring police misconduct. 711 F.3d at 469. We of course agree with the

Fisher court and acknowledge the value of deterring police misconduct in the interests of

judicial integrity and public trust. However, vacating a guilty plea in a case that an officer

was involved with based upon wholly unrelated conduct weighing solely on the officer’s

general credibility is simply too blunt a tool to use in support of this goal. Doing so would

undermine the likewise important public interests in the finality of judgments and the

integrity of guilty pleas that are in the interest of both the defendant and the State.

Petitioner also cites to United States v. Seng Chen Yong, 926 F.3d 582 (9th Cir.

2019). There, federal and state agents suspected that guests staying in several villas at

Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas were running an illegal sports booking operation. Seng Chen

Yong, 926 F.3d at 586. The agents worked with an IT contractor to disrupt internet service

to several of the villas in order to surreptitiously search for evidence while posing as

technicians. Id. at 586–87. After finding some evidence tending to confirm their

13 Petitioner’s reliance on Sawyer v. United States, 279 F. Supp. 3d 883 (D. Ariz. 2017), another affirmative misrepresentation case which cited heavily to Fisher, also fails for the same reasons. 21 suspicions, they filed a warrant application that was designed to give the impression that

the internet disruptions had not been orchestrated by the agents. Id. at 587. The application

also overstated what the contractor witnessed inside the villas. Id. During pretrial

discovery, the defendants were provided a tape recording establishing that the agents had

intentionally disrupted internet service to the villas. Id. Several of the defendants,

including Seng Chen Yong (“Yong”), then filed motions to suppress the evidence gained

from the searches. Id. Prior to the hearing on the motions, Yong agreed to plead guilty to

a lesser offense in exchange for the government’s dismissal of charges pending against his

son stemming from the same gambling operation. Id. at 588.

Yong later challenged that plea on several grounds, including on the basis that the

federal law enforcement agents’ misconduct rendered it involuntary. Id. at 589. The Ninth

Circuit disagreed and held that Yong’s plea was voluntary because he was already aware

of the misconduct that precipitated his arrest at the time of his plea. Id. at 594–95.

Therefore, it could not be said that there was a reasonable probability that knowledge of

the misconduct would have changed Yong’s decision to plead guilty—the second prong

under Fisher and Ferrara. Id.

Petitioner’s reliance on Seng Chen Yong is misplaced. Although Petitioner correctly

observes that here, unlike in Seng Chen Yong, Petitioner was not aware of the impeachment

information until years after his pleas, the ultimate result is the same. There were actual

misrepresentations in Seng Chen Yong that went to the core of Yong’s case. That cannot

be said for the case at bar.

22 Finally, Petitioner relies on Bellamy v. State, 403 Md. 308 (2008) in support of his

argument that, by merely indicating that certain officers would testify at trial, the State was

holding them out as providing truthful testimony that was entirely above reproach.

Bellamy, however, merely dealt with the adoption by the State of one version of the facts

of a murder during one defendant’s plea hearing, and the proffer of a different version of

those facts at a different defendant’s trial. Bellamy, 403 Md. at 311–18. This Court held,

based on the somewhat unique facts of the case, that the State’s proffer from the plea

hearing should have been admitted as an adoptive admission against the State at the trial

of the second defendant. Id. at 319–30. The holding in Bellamy does nothing to suggest

that in every case the State implicitly represents that any and all facts that it proffers at a

guilty plea hearing are not only true to the best of its knowledge, but entirely

unimpeachable—based not only on the testifying officer’s conduct in that case but in all

other prior and future cases.

In sum, the affirmative misrepresentation cases cited by Petitioner constitute a

limited exception to the general rule that a guilty plea is valid if it is “entered by one fully

aware of the direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to

him by the court, prosecutor, or his own counsel.” Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. at 755

(citation omitted). Those cases involve instances of “egregiously impermissible conduct”

consisting of affirmative misrepresentations that directly impacted the defendants’ cases.

See Fisher, 711 F.3d at 466 (finding that Fisher’s “misapprehension stem[med] from an

affirmative government misrepresentation that ‘str[uck] at the integrity of the prosecution

23 as a whole’” and constituted “gross police misconduct”) (citation omitted); Seng Chen

Yong, 926 F.3d at 594 (finding Yong’s plea to be voluntary notwithstanding that the district

court found there to be “‘gross police misconduct’ that ‘went to the heart of the

prosecution’s case’”); Ferrara, 456 F.3d at 291 (stating that the case involved a

“sufficiently outrageous,” “sufficiently parlous,” and “particularly pernicious form of

impermissible conduct” that raised due process concerns). Those circumstances are simply

lacking here.

Moreover, none of the cases cited by Petitioner establish or even suggest that in

proffering facts at a plea hearing the State is making an implicit representation regarding

the credibility of its witnesses. And none of those cases establish that undisclosed evidence

of police misconduct wholly unrelated to a defendant’s case can be so critical to the defense

that it renders the guilty plea involuntary. We decline Petitioner’s request to make new

law establishing either: (i) that by offering facts at a plea hearing the State is making a

representation to the defendant as to the credibility of its witnesses, or (ii) that undisclosed

police misconduct unrelated to a defendant’s charges, without more, can render their guilty

plea involuntary.

Apart from finding Petitioner’s reliance on existing caselaw unavailing, we also

independently assess the foundation for Petitioner’s request for relief and find it to be both

unrealistic and impractical. When Petitioner pled guilty, Ruiz had been the law for nearly

a decade. By that point, an informed defendant surely should have known that there is no

constitutional right to receive impeachment information prior to trial. Under Ruiz, waiving

24 the right to trial also entails the risk of waiving the right to that information, should it exist.

Therefore, it strains credulity to say that by merely not providing a defendant with that

information, which the State is under no obligation to provide, and by simultaneously

fulfilling its obligation to proffer facts in support of a guilty plea under Maryland Rule

4-242(c), the State has made a misrepresentation to the defendant regarding the credibility

of its witnesses.

It is also simply not possible for prosecutors to always make representations,

affirmative or otherwise, regarding the general credibility of all of their witnesses prior to

a defendant entering a guilty plea. As the Supreme Court has frequently had occasion to

note, our criminal justice system is largely one of pleas rather than trials. E.g., Missouri v.

Frye, 566 U.S. 134, 143 (2012) (citing to Department of Justice sources indicating that 97

percent of federal convictions in 2009 and 94 percent of state convictions in 2006 were the

result of guilty pleas). And those pleas are given at all different points in the process of

criminal prosecution, sometimes before prosecutors are even involved. Entering into guilty

plea agreements early on in the prosecution process is often beneficial to both the State and

the defendant. An early resolution allows the State to forgo expending the necessary

resources of preparing for trial, and often allows the defendant to receive a sentence that is

shorter than the sentence they likely would receive if convicted after a trial. Those benefits

would be undermined if the prosecution were required to determine the general credibility

of all persons whom the State might anticipate calling at trial, and then disclose that

information to the defendant prior to the defendant entering a guilty plea.

25 That Petitioner’s pleas occurred on the date scheduled for trial does not exempt him

from caselaw unequivocally holding that the government is not constitutionally obligated

to provide impeachment evidence prior to the defendant entering a valid guilty plea. See

Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622. That law should likewise stand for the proposition that the prosecution,

in not providing that evidence, does not automatically make a misrepresentation to the

defendant merely by proffering facts in support of its case. We decline to adopt an

unworkable and impractical rule that would trigger an obligation on behalf of the State to

make an affirmative representation to the defendant regarding the credibility of its

witnesses at some point along the continuum of a prosecution still prior to trial.

III.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court in Ruiz held that the right to impeachment information under

Brady v. Maryland is a trial right. That holding is not limited to instances where the

impeachment evidence would be of only limited value to the defendant. Regardless of how

important Petitioner perceives the misconduct of Officers Hersl and Wilson to be to his

defense, he relinquished any right to that information he may have had when he waived his

right to trial. We therefore hold that the State did not violate Brady v. Maryland by not

disclosing that information. We also hold that the State did not make an implicit

misrepresentation to Petitioner regarding the credibility of the witnesses it intended to call

at trial. Therefore, the State also did not violate Brady v. United States. As none of

Petitioner’s constitutional or fundamental rights were violated, he cannot establish his

26 entitlement to coram nobis relief. We therefore affirm, as did the Court of Special Appeals,

the circuit court’s denial of Petitioner’s request for coram nobis relief.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY THE PETITIONER.