Whether the government violated its obligations under Brady v. Maryland by suppressing evidence showing that the leading alternate suspect had a powerful motive to murder the decedent

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Petitioner was convicted of murder based on conflicting eyewitness testimony. The government’s witnesses put petitioner at the scene of the crime. Petitioner, however, presented eyewitnesses and other testimony that Darryl Hazel, not petitioner, committed the murder. The trial court refused to admit evidence of Hazel’s motive to commit the murder, and also excluded evidence that Hazel confessed to the crime. After trial, Hazel confessed several more times to the murder. Moreover, it emerged years later that the government had suppressed material, exculpatory evidence that Hazel had a powerful, personal motive to commit the murder as revenge for the murder of Hazel’s brother. By contrast, at trial, the government presented no evidence that petitioner had a motive to commit the crime. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the government violated its obligations under Brady v. Maryland by suppressing evidence showing that the leading alternate suspect had a powerful motive to murder the decedent. 2. Whether the trial court erred by concluding that multiple post-trial confessions by the leading alternate suspect would not have been admissible as statements against penal interest, and therefore, did not provide grounds for a new trial.