Split ruling rejects habeas argument where criminal defendant was denied thousands of pages of rape victim's mental health records

Here we have a habeas corpus case, in which a man convicted of rape claims he was denied a fair trial in his state court criminal case because the trial judge did not allow him to review all of the victim's mental health records. The Court of Appeals says no habeas relief is warranted, and plaintiff remains incarcerated.

The case is McCray v. Capra, issued on August 17. McCray and the victim went out on a date in Albany, and she claims he violently raped her that night. As it happens, the victim has multiple mental health issues, and the criminal court reviewed 5,000 pages of her mental health documents, providing McCray's lawyer with 28 representative pages. The jury convicted McCray of rape following a credibility fight at trial. McCray argues that he was denied a fair trial because he was unable to review all of the victim's mental health records, a due process violation. The state appellate courts disagreed with that argument, and the Court of Appeals says those state court rulings did not violate clearly-established constitutional law, as determined by the Supreme Court.

The clearly-established test is the product of a 1996 law enacted by Congress that makes it harder to win habeas petitions. It is not enough for the federal habeas judges to find that the state courts violated the Constitution. To win the habeas petition, you have to show the state court rulings contravened clearly-established Supreme Court authority. This standard gives state judges some authority to interpret the Constitution on their own, and federal judges have to defer to that judgment unless the state court rulings are completely out of bounds. This is not such a case, the Second Circuit (Sullivan and Lynch) says.

Under the Brady rule, the prosecutor has to give the defense team evidence that helps the defendant. But the prosecutor is not required to turn over his entire file. Only material, or relevant, evidence has to be produced. The question is whether the withheld evidence would have changed the result at trial. Nothing in the Supreme Court's caselaw suggests that providing only a sample of the victim's mental health records violates due process under the Brady rule. It was not objectively unreasonable for the state courts to find that many of the withheld documents were irrelevant or redundant. Fair-minded jurists could agree with the state court's finding that there was relevant information in the file that defendant never saw, and the Second Circuit finds that the records that defendant did see included a remarkable amount of information about the victim's mental health issues, including her memory issues, her hypersexuaity, her sexually risky behaviors, and other personality issues that defendant probably used at trial against her in attacking her credibility. That is enough to lose the habeas petition.

Judge Jacobs dissents. Bear in mind that Judge Jacobs is a conservative judge. Still, he says that more documents could've been provided to McCray beyond the 28 pages, and he notes that six appellate judges, including himself, believe that the trial judge got it wrong. (Of course, those appellate judges were outvoted by other appellate judges; still, an interesting point in a case for which McCray will spend many years in jail). He says those withheld documents included a treasure trove of significant mental health issues that McCray could have used against the victim in challenging her credibility and highlighting her memory issues. Judge Jacobs wraps it up this way:

On this present appeal, the majority has rigorously applied principles of finality and deference. But those principles and constraints in no way bind a prosecutor. A prosecutor who continues to enjoy a misbegotten victory is as much a menace as one who contrives it. Here, the Attorney General knows from successive appellate opinions that McCray, who is still in prison, was wholly denied the right to defend himself. Yet the Attorney General labors hard to maintain the advantage. The result here is that a person is more than halfway through a 22-year prison sentence, without a trial that anyone can now deem fair, and he is still without the opportunity to see the documents that could have acquitted him. I don’t know what happened in that abandoned house; but it is clear what is happening here. This is a sinister abuse. The last-ditch defense of such a conviction by the Attorney General is disreputable. Were I a lawyer for the State, I would not have been able to sign the brief it filed on this appeal.