Moore v. Illinois
408 U.S. 786 (1972)
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Rule of Law:
The prosecution's suppression of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process only where the evidence is material to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good or bad faith of the prosecution.
Facts:
- On April 25, 1962, Bernard Zitek, a bar operator, ejected two men from his bar for using profane language.
- Approximately one hour later, a man entered the bar with a shotgun and fatally shot Zitek.
- Patricia Hill, a waitress, and Henley Powell, a customer, both present during the shooting, identified Lyman A. Moore as the man who was ejected and who returned to kill Zitek.
- Two days later, at a different tavern, Virgle Sanders heard a man he knew as 'Slick,' whom he later identified as Moore, state it was 'open season on bartenders' and that he had shot one in Lansing.
- The owner and bartender of the second tavern also identified Moore as being present and confirmed parts of Sanders' story.
- On October 31, 1962, police arrested Moore and Jerry Barbee in a car that contained a 16-gauge shotgun; the murder weapon was a 12-gauge shotgun.
- Moore presented an alibi defense, with two witnesses from the Westmoreland Country Club testifying that club records showed he was working at the time of the murder.
Procedural Posture:
- Lyman A. Moore was convicted of first-degree murder in an Illinois state trial court and sentenced to death by a jury.
- Moore’s direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois was paused while he sought post-conviction relief in the trial court.
- Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Moore's petition for post-conviction relief.
- Moore's appeal from the post-conviction denial was consolidated with his direct appeal from the conviction and sentence.
- The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed both the trial court's judgment of conviction and the sentence.
- The United States Supreme Court granted Moore's petition for a writ of certiorari on limited grounds, including the claim of evidence suppression.
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Issue:
Does the prosecution's failure to disclose evidence that impeaches the testimony of a key corroborating witness violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when two other eyewitnesses positively identified the defendant as the perpetrator?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Blackmun
No. The prosecution's failure to disclose the evidence in question does not violate the Due Process Clause because the evidence was not material to the issue of guilt. Under the principles of Brady v. Maryland, suppressed evidence must be material, in addition to being favorable to the accused. In this case, the suppressed evidence primarily concerned the misidentification of Moore as a man named 'Slick' by the witness Sanders. This misidentification does not impeach the positive, in-court identifications of Moore as the killer by two other eyewitnesses, Hill and Powell. Furthermore, Sanders' testimony that Moore was at the Ponderosa Tap was corroborated by two other witnesses. Given the strength of the identification testimony by Hill and Powell, the suppressed evidence regarding 'Slick' was not material and its absence did not deprive Moore of a fair trial.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Marshall
Yes. The State's failure to disclose evidence that might have been of substantial assistance to the defense denied the petitioner a fair trial. The suppressed evidence was not merely material; it was absolutely critical. The prosecution's case rested heavily on identification testimony, and the undisclosed facts seriously impeached, if not destroyed, the key corroborating testimony of Virgle Sanders. This evidence included Sanders' prior inconsistent statement about when he met 'Slick,' statements from two other witnesses that Moore was not 'Slick,' and the police investigation into another suspect, James 'Slick' Watts. Had this evidence been available at trial, the jury may well have been unwilling to convict based on the identifications of Hill and Powell. The State has an affirmative duty to disclose clearly relevant and helpful evidence, and its failure to do so violated the fundamental fairness guaranteed by the constitution.
Analysis:
This decision refines the 'materiality' prong of the Brady test, establishing a high threshold for what constitutes a due process violation. The Court's analysis indicates that the materiality of suppressed evidence must be evaluated in the context of the entire record. If the prosecution's case is supported by strong, independent evidence of guilt (such as multiple eyewitness identifications), the failure to disclose evidence that only impeaches a secondary or corroborating witness may not be considered material. This holding makes it more difficult for defendants to succeed on Brady claims, as it requires showing that the suppressed evidence was not just helpful, but significant enough to create a reasonable probability of a different outcome.
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