Dropped Call: IL Court Finds Brady Violation Based on Failure to Disclose Key Evidence About Cell Phone

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the Supreme Court held the the government violates the Due Process Clause by failing to turn over material exculpatory evidence to the defendant in a timely fashion. The Court defined “material exculpatory evidence” as evidence that creates a reasonable probability of a different outcome at trial. Importantly, the Court held that there is a Brady violation even if the failure to timely disclose this evidence was not done in bad faith. It was this last point that allowed an Illinois court to reverse a man’s convictions for possessing between 2,000 and 5,000 grams of marijuana.

Let’s start by rewinding back to last September. In an article on the thirteenth of that month, the Peoria Journal Star reported that “Harry B. Sanders, also known as Harry B. Wadlington, 37, was found guilty after a two-day trial of possessing between 2,000 and 5,000 grams of marijuana.” The article then went on to note that

On May 16, the U.S. Postal Service alerted agents with the Multi-County Narcotics Enforcement Group to a suspicious package from Texas that was to be delivered to an undisclosed Peoria address that day. Testimony indicated Sanders’ name wasn’t on the package but he was home when an alarm placed by postal inspectors on the package was tripped. His fingerprints were found on one of the four interior packages.

Prosecutors also presented text messages from his phone that had the package’s tracking number.

Sounds like a pretty open and shut case, right? Apparently, all that Sanders could muster in the way of a defense was that the marijuana didn’t belong to him and that he was merely “visiting the home, which had a half-dozen people staying there.”

Now, fast forward to last Friday, when the Peoria Journal Star published a new article about the case. According to the article, Sanders was given a new trial because the prosecution failed to turn over a key piece of evidence: the cell phone with the tracking number that allegedly belonged to Sanders was actually registered in another man’s name. What the article doesn’t disclose is whether the man in whose name the phone was registered was one of the half-dozen people staying at the Peoria house where the drugs were delivered. What the article does reveal is that the judge was able to grant Sander a new trial even though he found that the prosecution’s failure to turn over this evidence wasn’t intentional.

-CM