People v. Hunter

• Citation: 11 N.Y.3d 1,892 N.E.2d 365
• Decision Date: 12 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. 92,92
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Burton Jeffrey HUNTER, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

892 N.E.2d 365

11 N.Y.3d 1

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Burton Jeffrey HUNTER, Appellant.

No. 92

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 12, 2008.

Cheryl Coleman Law Offices, Albany (Cheryl Coleman of counsel), for appellant.

Richard J. McNally Jr., District Attorney, Troy (Ian H. Silverman of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

SMITH, J.

Defendant was charged with rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, and convicted of sodomy, after a young woman testified that he raped and otherwise assaulted her during a visit to his home. Before defendant's trial the People learned, but did not tell defendant, that the same woman had recently accused another man of raping her in that man's home. We hold, based on the facts of this case, that the People violated their obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).

I

The event at the center of this case took place on December 9, 2001. At the trial, which began on November 6, 2002, the 17-year-old complainant testified that she had met the 33-year-old defendant for the first time on the day in question, and accepted his invitation to watch a movie at his house. While she was there, she testified, defendant, against her will, penetrated her with his penis and his fingers and performed oral sex on her. Defendant testified that only oral sex took place, and that the complainant consented. He testified, in substance, that the complainant first welcomed his advances, then told him to stop; that he stopped as soon as she asked him to; and that, as soon as she put her clothes back on, she inexplicably ran out of the house. He testified that he pursued her to ask what the problem was, and that her reply was "You raped me."

The forensic evidence was inconclusive. Each side spent considerable effort in shoring up the credibility of one of the main witnesses, and tearing down the other's.

The People proved that the complainant made her accusation immediately after the event, to her 13-year-old friend and her mother. These two witnesses also testified that defendant admitted to them that the complainant had been saying "no" during their encounter. In addition, the People suggested that defendant's version of the events was inherently incredible.

Defendant, for his part, brought out substantial inconsistencies between the complainant's original account of the event and her testimony at trial. He produced witnesses (though not impartial ones) to support his claim that the complainant had met him before the evening in question. He called two witnesses to testify that the complainant was known in the community as a liar — and one of those witnesses was the complainant's own father.

The complainant's father also testified to an occasion when his daughter flew into such a violent rage that he threatened to call the police, and she responded by saying, "[G]o ahead, call the cops. I will tell them you raped me." He said that he did call the police, and that the complainant did not follow through on her threat — a point the People stressed in closing argument: "[W]hatever [the complainant] said, if she said anything, was not taken seriously by [her father's] own words, it didn't bother him. There was no police report. There was [sic] no statements to police. There were no charges filed."

The jury's verdict implies that it did not wholly believe or disbelieve either of the two main witnesses: it acquitted defendant of rape and sexual abuse, but convicted him of sodomy in the first degree (oral sex by forcible compulsion).

After the trial, defendant learned that a man named Parker had been indicted for raping the same complainant. The alleged Parker rape took place in Parker's home on October 10, 2002, some 10 months after the incident involving defendant and about a month before defendant's trial. In a statement given on the day of the event, Parker admitted to having sex with the complainant, but said she consented to it. On May 27, 2003, several months after defendant's trial, Parker pleaded guilty to attempted rape of the complainant, and received a seven years and six months sentence, to run concurrently with a sentence of equal length imposed on him for an unrelated robbery.

Defendant moved, pursuant to CPL 440.10, to set aside his conviction, claiming the People had withheld Brady material. After the motion was made, the parties stipulated that the prosecutor who tried the case had learned of the accusation against Parker shortly before defendant's trial, but had not told the defense about it.

County Court granted defendant's motion, but the Appellate Division reversed. Relying on People v. Mandel, 48 N.Y.2d 952, 425 N.Y.S.2d 63, 401 N.E.2d 185 (1979), cert. denied 446 U.S. 949, 100 S.Ct. 2913, 64 L.Ed.2d 805 (1980), the Appellate Division held that evidence of complainant's accusation against Parker would not have been admissible at trial to impeach the complainant, because defendant had not shown either that the accusation was false or that it was similar enough to the complainant's accusation of defendant to suggest "a pattern of false complaints" (41 A.D.3d 885, 888, 838 N.Y.S.2d 221 [2007]). The Appellate Division relied on Parker's guilty plea, but also said that, even before the guilty plea, defendant could not have shown the falsity of the Parker allegation.

A Judge of this Court granted leave to appeal, and we now reverse.

II

Brady holds "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" (373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194). In this case, the parties dispute whether the complainant's accusation of Parker was "material" to the question of defendant's guilt. Where, as here, the defense did not specifically request the information, the test of materiality is whether "there is a reasonable probability that had it been disclosed to the defense, the result would have been different — i.e., a probability sufficient to undermine the court's confidence in the outcome of the trial" (People v. Bryce, 88 N.Y.2d 124, 128, 643 N.Y.S.2d 516, 666 N.E.2d 221 [1996]). We conclude that that test is satisfied.

The Appellate Division held that the information about Parker was immaterial because, in the Appellate Division's view, it could not have been used to impeach the complainant's testimony at trial. Defendant argues that the information would be subject to Brady even if it was not itself admissible in evidence (see United States v. Gil, 297 F.3d 93, 104 [2d Cir.2002]), but we need not consider that argument...