exonerate

Brady and his companion Boblit were found guilty of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to death following separate trials in Maryland, with Brady tried first. At his trial Brady took the stand and admitted his participation in the crime but claimed that Boblit did the actual killing. Prior to the trial Brady's counsel requested the prosecution to allow him to examine Boblit's extrajudicial statements. Several of those statements were shown to him. One statement dated July 9, 1958, in which Boblit admitted the actual homicide, was withheld by the prosecution and did not come to Brady's notice until after he had been tried, convicted, and sentenced and after his conviction had been affirmed. Brady moved the trial court for a new trial based on the newly discovered evidence that had been suppressed by the prosecution. His appeal from a denial of that motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeals without prejudice to relief under the Maryland Post Conviction Procedure Act. The petition for post-conviction relief was dismissed by the trial court. On appeal the Court of Appeals held that suppression of the evidence by the prosecution denied petitioner due process of law and remanded the case for a retrial of the question of punishment, not the question of guilt. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case. The crime was murder committed in the perpetration of a robbery. In Maryland punishment for that crime is life imprisonment or death, the jury being empowered to restrict the punishment to life by addition of the words "without capital punishment." By reason of the state constitution the jury in a criminal case are the judges of law as well as of fact.

Petitioner Calvin Smith was indicted for crimes connected to his role in an organization that distributed cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in Washington, D.C., for about a decade. The 158-count indictment charged Smith and 16 alleged co-conspirators with conspiring to run, and actually running, an illegal drug business, as well as with committing acts of violence, including 31 murders, to further their goals. Smith was tried alongside five codefendants in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A jury convicted him of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and to possess narcotics with the intent to distribute them, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise, and four counts of murder while armed. Before trial, Smith moved to dismiss the conspiracy counts as barred by the 5-year statute of limitations under 18 U.S.C. § 3282. He had spent the last six years of the charged conspiracies in prison for a felony conviction. The court denied his motion and Smith renewed his statute-of-limitations defense at trial. In the final jury charge, the court instructed the jury to convict Smith of each conspiracy count if the Government had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the conspiracies existed, that Smith was a member of those conspiracies, and that the conspiracies continued in existence within five years before the indictment. After it began deliberations, the jury asked the court what to do in the event that a defendant withdrew from the conspiracies outside the five-year limitations period. Over the defense's objection, the court instructed the jury that once the government has proven that a defendant was a member of a conspiracy, the burden is on the defendant to prove withdrawal from a conspiracy by a preponderance of the evidence. The jury then convicted Smith of the conspiracy crimes. As relevant here, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed Smith's conspiracy convictions. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the question of which party bears the burden of proving or disproving a defense of withdrawal prior to the limitations period.