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State v. Diprete5/1/1998
o new trial ordered because there was no sustainable inference of perjury); Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 151-52, 92 S. Ct. 763, 764-65, 31 L. Ed. 2d 104, 106-07 (1972) (ordering new trial where promise of leniency to a government witness not disclosed).
Our Rhode Island implementation of the Brady principles was first enunciated in In re Ouimette, 115 R.I. 169, 342 A.2d 250 (1975). In that case after a comprehensive survey of the cases preceding and subsequent to Brady, this Court adopted a rationale enunciated in United States v. Kahn, 472 F.2d 272, 287 (2d Cir. 1973), in which the court suggested that a defendant "must show there is a significant chance that the use and development of the withheld evidence by skilled counsel at trial would have produced a reasonable doubt in the minds of enough jurors to avoid a conviction." Ouimette, 115 R.I. at 179, 342 A.2d at 254-55. This test was adopted for determining whether a conviction should be set aside for the withholding of exculpatory evidence in circumstances in which the withholding was non-deliberate. The Court then remanded the case to the Superior Court in order to determine whether the legal principles enunciated would warrant a new trial. Id. at 181, 342 A.2d at 256. In State v. Wyche, 518 A.2d 907, 911 (R.I. 1986), we expressed the principle that a deliberate withholding of evidence by the prosecution would entitle the defendant to a new trial without the necessity of establishing prejudice. This rule was applicable pursuant to the Brady doctrine as well as Rule 16.
All the foregoing cases indicate beyond doubt that the Brady principles have no relevance to pretrial discovery. Under Brady the denial of due process is ripe for consideration only in the event that an accused has been convicted of an offense in circumstances in which the nondisclosure of exculpatory or impeaching evidence was deliberate or, when viewed in the context of the totality of the state's proof in the case, would have a material effect upon the outcome or would create a significant chance that such exculpatory or impeaching evidence in the hands of skilled counsel would have created a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. In sum the Brady doctrine creates a post-trial remedy and not a pretrial remedy and is therefore not relevant to the issues raised by this appeal.
Rule 16 - Discovery
In all the Rhode Island cases cited by the state and by defendants save one that will be considered later, the issue presented to the Court was whether discovery violations would warrant the reversal of a conviction and the ordering of a new trial. Such a new trial was ordered for failure to disclose an incriminating statement by the defendant in State v. Darcy, 442 A.2d 900, 903 (R.I. 1982). A similar remedy was provided for nondisclosure in State v. Verlaque, 465 A.2d 207, 212-14 (R.I. 1983), wherein the state furnished defense counsel with the names of fifty-three witnesses on the eve of trial without summarizing their testimony, in clear violation of the motion for discovery. Similarly in State v. Coelho, 454 A.2d 241 (R.I. 1982), a new trial was ordered because of the trial Justice's refusal to grant a continuance in the light of the failure of the state to complete the furnishing of discovery material until the eleventh hour. In that case we pointed out that the trial Justice could have mitigated the obvious prejudice caused to this defendant by granting a continuance. Id. at 246. In State v. Brisson, 619 A.2d 1099 (R.I. 1993), the defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. The alleged misconduct consisted of the prosecutor's nondisclosure of redacted sections of records of the Department of Child
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Rhode Island Personal Injury Attorneys
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