Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

The due process clause of the United States Constitution imposes a duty on the prosecution to disclose to the defense upon request any information favorable to the accused that is within the prosecutor’s possession and is material to the defendant’s guilt or to the appropriate punishment at sentencing.  The rule of Brady v. Maryland[291] applies equally to sentencing, in order that the sentence not be based on a mistake of fact or faulty information.[292]

            The sentence should thus be vacated if the prosecution prejudicially fails to disclose to the defense “all information in his files which is favorable to the defendant on the sentencing issue . . . .”[293]  Violation of this duty constitutes an ethical violation as well.[294]  As a result, a sentence must be vacated where the government wrongly withheld significant information that might have altered the sentence if it had been disclosed.[295]  In other words, if a sentence was based on a mistaken view of the evidence, which was brought about by a police or prosecution due process violation, the sentence is constitutionally invalid.[296]

[291] Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).

[292] See, e.g. United States v. Pfingst, 477 F.3d 177, 191 (2d Cir. 1973).

[293] ABA Standards Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures § 5.3(d)(ii)(1968); see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (“We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” [Emphasis supplied]).

[294]  See ABA Code of Professional Responsibility, DR 7-103(B)(1970) (“A public prosecutor or other government lawyer in criminal litigation shall make timely disclosure to counsel for the defendant, or to the defendant if he has no counsel, of the existence of evidence, known to the prosecutor or other government lawyer, that tends to negate the guilt of the accused, mitigate the degree of the offense, or reduce the punishment.”).

[295] United States v. Weintraub, 871 F.2d 1257 (5th Cir. 1989) (sentence reversed where government improperly withheld from the defense impeachment information contradicting the only evidence in the presentence report concerning the quantity of drugs involved in the case); Almeida v. Baldi, 195 F.2d 815 (3d Cir. 1952) (suppressed evidence surfaced in codefendant’s trial); but see Jones v. Butler, 864 F.2d 348 (5th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1076 (1989) (holding withheld evidence would not have created sufficient doubt to require reversal of a capital sentence).  See also Caron, The Sentencing Defendant’s Right to Obtain Exculpatory Evidence from the Prosecution to Present in Mitigation Before Sentencing, 23 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 207 (1985).

[296] Sanchez v. United States, 50 F.3d 1448 (9th Cir. 1995).