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State Court Unreasonably Denied Brady Relief for Commonwealth?s Concealment of Evidence

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

In Lambert v. Beard, ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 353209 (3d Cir. Feb. 7, 2011), Judge Barry authored the panel opinion granting guilt-innocence phase relief in this 1984 Philadelphia capital case. The state?s star witness, Jackson, who initially was identified as one of the shooters in a barroom robbery-murder, identified petitioner as one of two robbers who entered the bar while Jackson waited in the getaway car. Jackson was extensively impeached at trial, but the prosecution argued that one aspect of his testimony?his identification of Lambert and a second party as the two men who committed the crime?had never changed. In postconviction and habeas petitions, Lambert presented evidence that the prosecutor?s claim was untrue. The Commonwealth had never disclosed a police activity sheet showing that Jackson at one time named a third party, not Lambert or the second party he identified at trial, as a ?co-defendant? responsible for the shooting...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on February 15, 2011 (boomark / email).