Would the jury have convicted these men of murder if they’d known there was another suspect?
That was the pivotal question addressed by the Supreme Court in its Thursday decision to uphold the convictions of seven men in a high-profile murder case, even though the prosecution had withheld crucial information during the trial.
In his majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer called the case “factually complex,” but in the end, the Court determined, “It is not reasonably probable that the withheld evidence could have led to a different result at trial.”
This is the latest SCOTUS decision to focus on impact of suppressed evidence, instead of its mere existence, making it harder to get a new trial to challenge a conviction.