Curtis Lee Kyles v. John P. Whitley, Warden (514 U.S. 419)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 19, 1995 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 514 U.S. 419 · 115 S. Ct. 1555
- Decided
- April 19, 1995
- Term
- October Term 1994
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. After his first trial in 1984 ended in a hung jury, petitioner Curtis Lee Kyles was tried again, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. On habeas review, we follow the established rule that the state’s obligation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), to disclose evidence favorable to the defense, turns on the cumulative effect of all such evidence suppressed by the government, and we hold that the prosecutor remains responsible for gauging that effect regardless of any failure by the police to bring favorable evidence to the prosecutor’s attention. Because the net effect of the evidence withheld by the State in this case raises a reasonable probability that its disclosure would have produced a different result, Kyles is entitled to a new trial. I Following the mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a verdict, Kyles’s subsequent conviction and sentence of death were affirmed on direct appeal. State v. Kyles, 513 So. 2d 265 (La. 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1027 (1988). On state collateral review, the trial court denied relief, but the Supreme Court of Louisiana remanded for an evidentiary hearing on Kyles’s claims of newly discovered evidence. During this state-court proceeding, the defense was first able to present certain evidence, favorable to Kyles, that the State had failed to disclose…
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