The Supreme Court refused—over the dissent of three liberal justices—on April 3 to take up an appeal by a death row prisoner in Louisiana who was seeking a new sentencing hearing.
The inmate, David Brown, argued the prosecution improperly withheld a confession from a co-defendant that could have affected the sentence Brown was given.
The case goes back to a 1999 attempt at escape from the Angola state prison. Brown and four co-defendants, called the Angola 5 in the media, were convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of prison guard David Knapps.
Brown said he was entitled to have his death sentence reconsidered because prosecutors failed to hand over potentially exculpatory evidence to defense lawyers.
Had the jury been allowed to hear the evidence they might have decided to spare his life, he argued. Prosecutors only produced the evidence after sentencing.
Brown acknowledged that he was involved in his co-defendants’ initial assault on Knapps but during the trial Brown insisted that he was not present when the victim was killed and that he did not want the victim to die.
The opinion was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The prosecution obtained the confession before Brown’s trial but did not hand it over to the defense until after sentencing had been completed.
In the confession, Edge said that he and another co-defendant, Jeffrey Clark, were “the only ones that were thinking rationally during the highly charged situation,” and that Clark and he decided to kill Knapps in order to help themselves.
Violation of Rights
“Had the jury found Brown less culpable than his co-defendants, that finding could have served as a mitigating factor that spared him a sentence of death. Yet the only evidence supporting Brown’s account was his own self-serving statement given to police shortly after the event. The jury voted to sentence Brown to death.”Jackson wrote that the delay in handing over the confession evidence to Brown’s legal team violated his constitutional rights as established by the Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland (1963).
That ruling held evidence is favorable to the defendant if it holds “some value” in helping the defendant’s case.
“There is value where, for example, the evidence tends to exculpate the defendant or impeach a witness … or might reduce the potential penalty.”
Sentence Invalidated, Reinstated
“Here, Edge’s confession satisfies the favorability test: By inculpating Edge and Clark in the victim’s death—without any mention of Brown—the confession supports an inference that Brown was not one of the individuals who killed or decided to kill the victim,” the justice wrote.“It thus provides ‘some value’ in supporting Brown’s argument that he was less culpable than his co-defendants and did not deserve to be sentenced to death,” according to Jackson.
Edge’s confession was material to the penalty phase of Brown’s trial.
“The fact that Edge confessed without naming Brown or suggesting that he had participated in the murder supplied independent evidence corroborating Brown’s argument that he was not present during the murder and did not intend to kill the victim,” the justice wrote.
A Louisiana state judge invalidated the death sentence, but the Louisiana Supreme Court reinstated it on a vote of 4 to 3, ruling that Edge’s confession was not favorable to Brown.
Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. told The Epoch Times by email, “We respect the Court’s decision.”
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to Brown’s counsel, Jeffrey Fisher of O’Melveny and Myers, but had not received a reply as of press time.
