Motion for relief from judgment; Good cause; Evidence of a favorable plea agreement for a prosecution witness; Brady v Maryland; People v Chenault; Materiality; Prosecution’s failure to correct false testimony

The court held that the trial court erred in denying defendant-Davis’s motion for relief from judgment based on his Brady claim related to a favorable plea agreement provided to the prosecution’s key witness (R). Davis was convicted of second-degree murder, CCW, FIP, and felony-firearm. The court affirmed in Davis I. After the trial court initially denied his motion for relief from judgment, the court remanded for an evidentiary hearing. The trial court again denied his motion. In this appeal, the court first determined that Davis established “good cause for failing to previously raise his Brady claim. Although [his] appellate attorney in Davis I touched on the issue, counsel failed to properly raise the argument.” The court further concluded that the trial court erred in denying Davis’s motion “because the prosecution suppressed evidence of a favorable plea agreement provided to” R in exchange for his testimony, did not correct R’s “false testimony that he did not receive consideration for testifying against Davis, and falsely stated during closing argument that [R] did not receive a benefit for his testimony.” It found that the “trial court clearly erred by determining that [R] did not receive a favorable plea deal in exchange for his testimony. A review of [R’s] calendar conference, plea, and sentencing transcripts compels no other conclusion. Although the trial court opined that the witnesses at the evidentiary hearing failed to ‘disclose[] any secret deals,’ [it] failed to appreciate [their] general lack of recollection of the relevant events and the unlikelihood that a witness would have been inclined to disclose a ‘secret deal.’” The court also concluded the prosecutor “compounded the Brady error by eliciting testimony from [R] that the plea deal he accepted was not in exchange for his testimony against Davis.” In addition, during closing argument the prosecutor asserted that R “did not receive consideration in his case in exchange for testifying against Davis.” The court determined “the suppressed evidence was material and there exists a reasonable probability that absent the errors involving [R’s] testimony—the failure to disclose [R’s] plea agreement, the failure to correct his false testimony, and the affirmative assertion to the jury that [R] did not receive special consideration in exchange for his testimony—Davis would have had a reasonably likely chance of acquittal.” Reversed and remanded for a new trial.