United States v. Hart

29 M.J. 407, 1990 CMA LEXIS 10, 1990 WL 10350
CourtUnited States Court of Military Appeals
DecidedFebruary 26, 1990
DocketNo. 61,928; CM 8702407
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 29 M.J. 407 (United States v. Hart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Military Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Hart, 29 M.J. 407, 1990 CMA LEXIS 10, 1990 WL 10350 (cma 1990).

Opinion

[408]*408 Opinion of the Court

EVERETT, Chief Judge:

Contrary to his pleas, Specialist Hart was convicted by a general court-martial of one specification each of maiming, assault intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm, and being drunk and disorderly — violations of Articles 124, 128, and 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 USC §§ 924, 928, and 934, respectively. The court members sentenced appellant to a discharge from the Army with a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 3 years, total forfeitures, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade. The convening authority approved these results, and the Court of Military Review affirmed. 27 MJ 839 (1989).

We granted appellant’s petition for review to determine whether evidence, which the Government concedes was not disclosed to his defense counsel, was material to his defense.1 After careful review of the record in this case, we conclude that the evidence was not material and that appellant suffered no substantial prejudice from the Government’s failure to disclose it.

This case had its genesis in a fight at the-' Crystal Palace, a bar in the Federal Republic of Germany. During the fight, someone bit off a piece of the ear of Private Oyler. In the course of the investigation two suspects emerged, Hart and a Private Wright. Wright originally had bragged that he had been in a fight and had bitten a man’s ear off. He was in possession of part of the ear, which agents of the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) later obtained in a search of Wright’s room. Later he recanted and told the CID that he had made up the story to cover up the fact that he had spent some money belonging to other soldiers in the unit instead of buying drugs for them.

I

Specialist Hart became the focus of the investigation when other soldiers who had been at the scene identified him as the assailant. Hart originally told the CID investigator that he had been drunk that evening and did not know whether he had been at the bar. Later he called the investigator and told him that he had talked with a number of friends; and, since they told him that he had committed the assault, he was willing to take responsibility for it.

With these facts before them, the CID staged a photographic line up. Oyler was shown a number of photographs, including Hart’s; the CID report does not indicate whether Wright’s picture was included. Oyler could not identify anyone in the array as his assailant.

The Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory in Europe undertook a comparison analysis of the ear fragment, blood, and saliva samples from appellant and the victim, as well as the cigarette box where Wright had kept the ear. The analyses of the ear sample and the blood showed that they could have come from Oyler, the victim. However, analysis of the staining inside the box was inconclusive.

Trial defense counsel was not aware of these two matters.2 During his preparation for trial, he did not make a specific discovery request because the staff judge advocate of the local command had a policy that all information developed by either the CID or the trial counsel was to be routinely provided to the defense.3 After preferral of charges, defense counsel was given a copy of the draft CID report, which indi[409]*409cated that the analyses had been ordered. He was not provided with the laboratory results, however, and did not know that they had been completed prior to the trial date. Further, he was not informed that Oyler had failed to identify appellant in the photographic line up; and he was not given certain sworn statements from Wright and two other soldiers, although he was provided with summaries of those statements.

II

A

In the seminal case of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the Supreme Court considered the effect of prosecution failure to disclose evidence and decided that the Government’s withholding of material evidence violates due-process guarantees and may require setting aside the conviction or sentence. However, as the Court subsequently explained, the standard for determining “materiality” will vary with the particular factual situation.

In United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), the Supreme Court distinguished between three situations. If the Government has reason to know that the witness has perjured himself and does not disclose this fact, the conviction “must be set aside if there is any reasonable likelihood that the” perjured evidence “could have affected the” outcome. 427 U.S. at 103, 96 S.Ct. at 2397. If the defense has requested specific items of evidence which are not provided, the test is whether this “evidence might have affected the outcome of the trial.” Id. at 104, 96 S.Ct. at 398. Finally, if there is only a general request for discovery or no request at all, the court must determine whether there is “a reasonable doubt” — in view “of the entire record,” including the suppressed evidence — that the accused would have been convicted had the evidence been disclosed. Id. at 112-13, 96 S.Ct. at 2401-02.

In United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 679-80, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 3382-83, 87 L.Ed.2d 481, 493 (1985), Justice Blackmun, writing for a plurality of the Court, sought to eliminate the distinction between the second and third situations. He concluded that the applicable standard of “materiality” was the same whether there was a “specific request,” a “general request,” or “no request.” In his view, the test was this:

The 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.

473 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. at 3383. This test was purportedly based on the standard of review utilized by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct.2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), and United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 874, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 3450, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1982). Justice Blackmun also observed that a prosecutor’s failure to respond to a specific request might have an adverse effect on the preparation or presentation of the defendant’s case, and this might be significant in applying the standard of materiality.

Justice White, joined by Chief Justice Burger and then-Justice Rehnquist, agreed with the standard of materiality that Justice Blackmun applied; but he saw “no reason to attempt to elaborate on the relevance to the inquiry of the specificity of the defense’s request for disclosure, either generally or with respect to this case.” Id. 473 U.S. at 685, 105 S.Ct. at 3385. On the other hand, Justices Marshall and Brennan would have applied a more liberal standard of materiality than did Justice Blackmun.

In United States v. Eshalomi,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 M.J. 407, 1990 CMA LEXIS 10, 1990 WL 10350, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-hart-cma-1990.