[1]: 4 On June 27, 1958, a 25-year-old Maryland man named John Leo Brady and his 24-year-old companion Charles Donald Boblit murdered 53-year-old acquaintance William Brooks.

[2] The prosecution had withheld a written statement by Boblit (the men were tried separately), confessing that he had committed the act of killing by himself.

The Court determined that under Maryland law, the withheld evidence could not have exculpated the defendant but was material to his level of punishment.

Officers and their unions have used litigation, legislation, and informal political pressure to push back on Brady's application to their personnel files.

[2] Harry Blackmun wrote in Bagley that "only if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.