United States v. Coulter

In United States v. Coulter, No. 22-10975 (5th Cir. July 9, 2024) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the defendant’s convictions despite his argument that “the Government should have disclosed the arresting officer’s personnel file so that Coulter could impeach the officer’s testimony at trial.”

Before trial, the district court granted “several ex parte motions for in camera review of and request to seal [the officer’s] disciplinary records in his personnel file to ensure they were not subject to disclosure under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and its progeny.” The court concluded that the impeachment evidence in the personnel file “was not material to this case.”

Even so, the Government was ordered to “summarize the circumstances” of the officer’s termination from his former police department. After the Government made that disclosure, the court “determined the evidence was inadmissible as irrelevant under Federal Rule of Evidence 402 or as more prejudicial than probative under Rule 403.” At trial, Coulter represented himself pro se and was convicted.

On appeal, Coulter had counsel, who argued that “the personnel file should have been disclosed so that Coulter could impeach [the officer’s] testimony” because that testimony “was the sole evidence” for an essential element of the charged crime. But the Fifth Circuit found that was “not the only evidence,” and the court was not “left with a ‘definite and firm conviction’ that a mistake ha[d] been committed” by the district court. See United States v. Brown, 650 F.3d 581, 589 (5th Cir. 2011). As a result, the court affirmed the defendant’s conviction.