Majority — Douglas J.
Opinion of the Court by
announced by Mr. Justice Brennan.
Petitioner and a companion, Boblit, were found guilty of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to death, their convictions being affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Maryland. 220 Md. 454 , 154 A. 2d 434 . Their trials were separate, petitioner' being tried first. At his trial Brady took the stand and admitted his participation in the crime, but he claimed that Boblit did the actual killing. And, in his summation to the jury, Brady’s counsel conceded that Brady was guilty of murder in thé first degree, asking only that the jury return that verdict “without capital punishment.” Prior to the trial petitioner’s counsel had requested the prosecution to allow him to examine Boblit’s extrajudicial statements. Several of those statements were shown to him; but one dated July 9, 1958, in which Boblit admitted the actual homicide, was withheld by the prosecution and did not come to petitioner’s notice until after he had been tried, convicted, and sentenced, and after his conviction had been affirmed.
Petitioner moved the trial court for a new trial based on the newly discovered evidence' that had been suppressed by the prosecution. Petitioner’s appeal from a denial of that motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeals without prejudice to relief under the Maryland
The crime in question was murder committed in the perpetration of a robbery. Punishment for that crime in Maryland is life imprisonment or death, the jury being empowered to restrict the punishment to life by addition of the words “without capital punishment.” 3 Md. Ann. Code, 1957, Art. 27, § 413. In Maryland, by reason of the state constitution, the jury in a criminal case are “the Judges of Law, as well as of fact.” Art. XV, § 5. The question presented is whether petitioner was denied a federal right when the Court of Appeals restricted the new trial to the question of punishment.
1 Neither party suggests that the decision below is not a “final judgment” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3), and no attack on the reviewability of the lower court’s judgment could be successfully maintained. For the general rule that “Final judgment in a criminal case means sentence. The sentence is the judgment” (Berman v. United States, 302 U. S. 211 , 212) cannot be applied here. If in fact the Fourteenth Amendment entitles petitioner to a new trial on the issue of guilt as well as punishment the ruling below has seriously prejudiced him. It is the right to a trial on the issue of guilt “that presents a serious and unsettled question” (Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 , 547) that “is fundamental to the further conduct of the case” (United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373 , 377). This question is “independent of, and unaffected by” (Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, 326 U. S. 120 , 126) what may transpire in a trial at which petitioner can receive only a life imprisonment or death sentence. It cannot be mooted by such a proceeding. See Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418 , 421-422. Cf. Local No. 438 v. Curry, 371 U. S. 542 , 549.
This ruling is an extension of Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 , 112, where the Court ruled on what nondisclosure by a prosecutor violates due process:
“It is a requirement that cannot be deemed to be satisfied by mere notice and hearing if a State has contrived, a conviction through the pretense of a trial which in truth is but used as a means of depriving a defendant of liberty through a deliberate deception of court and jury by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured. Such a contrivance by a State to procure the conviction and imprisonment' of a defendant is as inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice as is the obtaining of a like result by intimidation.”
In Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U. S. 213 , 215-216, we phrased the.rule in broader terms:
“Petitioner’s papers- are inexpertly drawn, but they do set forth - allegations that his imprisonment resulted from perjured testimony, knowingly used by the State authorities to obtain his conviction, and fróm the deliberate suppression by those same authorities of evidence favorable to him. These allegations sufficiently charge a deprivation of rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, and, if proven, would entitle petitioner to release from his present custody. Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 .”
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.
The principle of Mooney v. tiolohan is not punishment of society for misdeeds of a prosecutor but avoidance of an unfair trial to the accused, Society wins not only when the guilty are convicted but when criminal trials are fair; o.ur system of the administration of justice suffers when any accused .is treated unfairly. An inscription on the walls of the Department of Justice states the proposition candidly for the federal domain: “The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts.”[2] A prosecution that withholds evidence on demand of an accused which, if made avail
2 Judge Simon E. Sobeloff when Solicitor General put the idea as follows in an address before the Judicial Conference of the Fourth Circuit on June 29,1954: “The Solicitor General is hot a neutral, he is an advocate; but an advocate for a client whose business is not merely to prevail in the instant case. ■ My client’s chief business is not to achieve victory but to establish justice. We are constantly reminded of the now classic words penned by one of my illustrious predecessors, Frederick. William Lehmann, that the Government wins its point when justice is done in its courts.”
The question rernains whether petitioner was denied a constitutional right'when the Court of Appeals restricted his new trial to the qúestion of punishment. In justification of that ruling the Court of Appeals stated:
“There is considerable doubt as to how much good Boblit’s undisclosed confession would have done' Brady if it had been before- the jury. It clearly implicated Brady as being the one who wanted to strangle the victim, Brooks. Boblit, according to this statement, also favored killing him, -but he wanted to do it by shooting. We cannot put ourselves in the place of the jury and assume what their views would have been as to whether it did or did riot matter whether it was Brady’s hands or Boblit’s hands that twisted’ the shirt about the victim’s neck. ... [I]t would be 'too dogmatic’ for us to say that the jury would not have attached any significance to this evidence in considering the punishment of the defendant Brady.
“Not without some doubt, we conclude that the withholding of this particular confession of Boblit’s was prejudicial to the defendant Brady. . . .
“The appellant’s sole claim of prejudice goes to the punishment imposed. • If Boblit’s withheld confession had been before the jury, nothing in it could have reduced the appellant Brady’.s offense below murder in the first degree. We, therefore, see no occasion to retry that issue.” 226 Md., at 429-430 , 174 A. 2d, at 171 . (Italics added.)
But Maryland’s cqnstitutional provision making the jury in criminal cases “the Judges of Law” does not mean precisely what it seems to say.[3] The present status of that provision was reviewed recently in Giles v. State, 229 Md. 370 , 183 A. 2d 359 , appeal dismissed, 372 U. S. 767 , where the several exceptions, added by statute or carved out by judicial construction, are reviewed. One of those exceptions, material here, is that “Trial courts have always passed and still pass upon the admissibility of evidence the jury may consider on the issue of the innocence or guilt of the accused.” 229 Md., at 383 , 183 A. 2d, at 365 . The cases cited make up a long line going back nearly a century. Wheeler v. State, 42 Md. 563 , 570, stated that instructions to the jury were advisory only, “except in regard to questions as to what shall be considered as evidence.” And the court “having such right, it follows of course, that it also has the right to prevent counsel from arguing against such an instruction.” Bell v. State, 57 Md. 108 , 120. And see Beard v. State, 71 Md. 275 , 280, 17 A. 1044 , 1045; Dick v. State, 107 Md. 11 , 21, 68 A. 286 , 290. Cf. Vogel v. State, 163 Md. 267 , 462 A. 705 .
3 See Dennis, Maryland’s Antique Constitutional Thorn, 92 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 34, 39, 43; Prescott, Juries as Judges of the Law: Should the Practice be Continued, 60 hid. St. Bar Assn. Rept. 246, 253-254.
4 For one unhappy incident of recent vintage see Oklahoma Packing Co. v. Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co., 309 U. S. 4 , that replaced an earlier opinion in the same case, 309 U. S. 703 .
5 “In the matter of confessions a hybrid situation exists., It is the duty of the' Court to determine from the proof, usually taken out of the presence ■ of the jury, if they were freely and voluntarily made, etc., and admissible. If admitted, the jury is entitled to hear and consider proof of the circumstances surrounding their obtention, the -better to determine their weight and sufficiency. The fact that the Court-admits them'clothes them with no presumption for the jury’s purposes that they are either true or were freely and voluntarily made. However, after a confession has been admitted and read to the jury the judge may change his mind and strike it out of the record. Does he strike it out of the jury’s mind?” Dennis, Maryland’s Antique Constitutional Thorn, 92 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 34, 39. See also Bell v. State, supra, at 120; Vogel v. State, 163 Md., at 272 , 162 A., at 706-707.
Affirmed.
Separate opinion of
.1. The Maryland Court of Appeals declared, “The suppression or withholding by the State of material evidence exculpatory to an accused is a violation, of due process” without citing the United States Constitution or the Maryland Constitution which also has a due process clause.[6] We therefore cannot be sure which Constitution was invoked by the court below and thus whether the State, the only party aggrieved by this portion of the judgment, could even bring the issue here if it desired to do so. See New York City v. Central Savings Bank, 306 U. S. 661 ; Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U. S. 551 . But in any event, there is no cross-petition by the. State, nor has it challenged the correctness of the ruling below that a new trial on punishment' was called for by the requirements of due process. In my view, therefore, the Court should not reach the due process question which it decides. It certainly is not the case, as it may be suggested, that without it we would have only a state law question, for assuming the court below was correct in finding a violation of petitioner’s rights in the suppression of evidence, the federal question he wants decided here still remains, namely, whether denying him a new trial on guilt as well as punishment deprives him of equal protection. There is thus a federal question to. deal with in this Court, cf. Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 ,
* Md. Const., Art. 23; Home Utilities Co., Inc., v. Revere Copper & Brass, Inc., 209 Md. 610 , 122 A. 2d 109 ; Raymond v. State, 192 Md. 602 , 65 A. 2d 285 ; County Comm'rs of Anne Arundel County v. English, 182 Md. 514 , 35 A. 2d 135 ; Oursler v. Tawes, 178 Md. 471 , 13 A. 2d 763 .
Dissent — Harlan J.
The result, of course, is that the due process discussion by the Court is wholly advisory.
2¿ In Any event the Court's due process advice goes substantially beyond the holding below. I would employ more confining language and would not cast in constitutional form a broad rule of criminal discovery. Instead, I would leave this task, at least for now, to the rule-rnakiñg or legislative process after full consideration by legislators, bench, and bar.
3. I concur in the Court’s disposition of petitioner’s equal protection argument.
whom Mr. Justice Black joins,
dissenting.
I think this case presents only a single federal question: did the order of the Maryland Court of Appeals granting a new trial, limited to the issue of punishment, violate petitioner’s Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection?[1] In my opinion an affirmative answer would
1 I agree with my Brother White that there is no necessity for deciding in this case the broad due process questions with which the Court deals at pp. 86-88 of its opinion.
The Court, however, holds that the Fourteenth Amendment was not infringed because it considers the Court of Appeals’ opinion, and the other Maryland cases dealing with Maryland’s constitutional provision making juries in criminal cases “the Judges of Law, as well as of fact,” as establishing that the Boblit statement woüld not have been admissible at the original trial on the issue of petitioner’s guilt.
But I cannot read the Court of Appeals’ opinion with any such assurance. That opinion can as easily, and perhaps more easily, be read as indicating that the new trial ■ limitation followed from the Court of Appeals’ concept of its power, under § 645G of the Maryland Post Conviction Procedure Act, Md. Code, Art. 27 (1960 Cum. Supp.) and Rule 870 of the Maryland Rules of Procedure, to fashion appropriate relief meeting the peculiar circumstances of this case,[2] rather than from the view that the Boblit statement would have been relevant at the original trial only on the issue of punishment. 226 Md., at 430 , 174 A. 2d, at 171 . This interpretation is indeed fortified by the Court of Appeals’ earlier general discussion as to the admissibility of third-party confessions, which falls short of saying anything that is disposi-
2 Section 645G provides in part: “If the court finds in favor of the petitioner, it shall enter an appropriate order with respect to the judgment or sentence in the former proceedings, and any supplementary orders as to rearraignment, retrial, custody, bail, discharge, correction of sentence, or other matters that may be necessary and proper.” Rule 870 provides that the Court of Appeals “will either affirm or reverse the judgment from which the appeal wras taken, or direct the. manner in which it shall be modified, changed or amended."
Nor do I find anything in any of the other Maryland cases cited by the Court .{ante, pj 89) which bears on the admissibility vel non of the Boblit statement on the issue of guilt. . None of these cases suggests anything moré relevant here than that a jury may not “overrule” the trial court on questions relating to the admissibility of evidence. Indeed they are by. no means clear as to what happens if the jury in fact undertakes to do so. In this very case, for example, the trial court charged that “in the final analysis the jury are the judges of both the law and the facts, and the verdict in this case is entirely the jury’s responsibility.” (Emphasis added.)
Moreover, uncertainty on this score is compounded by the State’s acknowledgment at the oral argument here that the withheld .Boblit statement would have been admissible at the trial on the issue of guilt.[4]
In this state of uncertainty as to the proper’ answer to the critical underlying issue of state law, and in view of the fact that the Court of Appeals did not in terms
3 It is-noteworthy that the Court of Appeals did not indicate that it was limiting in any way the authority of Day v. State, 196 Md. 384 , 76 A. 2d 729 . In that case two defendants were jointly tried and convicted of felony murder. Each admitted participating in the felony but accused the other of the homicide. On appeal the defendants attacked the trial court’s denial of a severance, and the State argued that neither defendant was harmed by the statements put in evidence at the joint trial because admission of the felony amounted to admission of guilt of felony murder. Nevertheless the Court of Appeals found an abuse of discretion and ordered separate new trials on all issues..
4 In response to a question from the Bench as to whether Boblit’s statement, had it been offered at petitioner’s original trial, would have been admissible for all .purposes, counsel for the State, after some colloquy, stated: “It would have been, yes.” ”
Cases cited
- 371 U. S. 812 371 U. S. 812 p. 85
- 195 F. 2d 815 195 F. 2d 815 p. 86
- 221 F. 2d 763 221 F. 2d 763 p. 86
- Mooney v. Holohan 294 U. S. 103 p. 86, p. 87
- Pyle v. Kansas 317 U. S. 213 p. 86, p. 87
- Napue v. Illinois 360 U. S. 264 p. 87
- Alcorta v. Texas 355 U. S. 28 p. 87
- Wilde v. Wyoming 362 U. S. 607 p. 87
- Durley v. Mayo 351 U. S. 277 p. 87
- Williams v. New York 337 U. S. 241 p. 91
- 306 U. S. 661 306 U. S. 661 p. 91
- Minnesota v. National Tea Co. 309 U. S. 551 p. 91, p. 95
- Bell v. Hood 327 U. S. 678 p. 91