Hunt v. State
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The Court of Appeals held that, under the unique circumstance of the late Joseph Kopera's deception of Maryland's courts and defendants for decades in a number of criminal cases in which he testified as an expert in the field of firearms ballistics, due diligence did not require defense counsel to unearth Kopera's fraud prior to 2007.
In 2007, an attorney working for the innocence project discovered that Kopera gave perjured testimony in hundreds of criminal trials concerning his credentials. Ronnie Hunt later filed a second amended petition for writ of actual innocence, arguing that had Kopera's fake credentials been known, it was reasonably probable that the outcome of his trial would have been different. The circuit court denied the petition on the ground that Kopera's false testimony concerning his credentials was not newly discovered evidence. The court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) in this and all similarly situated cases tried prior to the discovery of Kopera's fraud, due diligence did not require defense counsel to unearth the charade prior to 2007; and (2) remand was required for the trial court to determine whether Hunt could establish a substantial possibility that, had Kopera's false testimony been known at the time of his trial, the result of Hunt's trial may have been different.
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