In October 1988 Alphonso Stripling shot four of his fellow employees at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant during an armed robbery. Two of his victims died. He then carjacked a getaway car at gunpoint from the parking lot of a nearby restaurant and crashed it while being chased by the police. At his 1989 trial, Stripling’s counsel presented evidence of mental illness and mental retardation. The jury, while convicting Stripling of the crimes arising out of the KFC robbery, did not find him guilty but mentally ill or guilty but mentally retarded. The jury recommended a death sentence. This Court affirmed. Stripling v. State , 261 Ga. 1 401 SE2d 500 1991. Stripling filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. After an evidentiary hearing in April 2002, the habeas court vacated Stripling’s death sentence finding that the State had violated Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83 83 SC 1194, 10 LE2d 215 1963, by suppressing evidence supporting his claim of mental retardation. Warden Frederick Head appeals that ruling, along with the habeas court’s other rulings, including that Stripling be sentenced to a non-capital sentence based on a finding that his death sentence was a miscarriage of justice because he is mentally retarded; that OCGA § 17-7-131 is unconstitutional to the extent that it requires a defendant to prove his mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt in the guilt-innocence phase of a death penalty trial; and that Stripling received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the habeas court’s ruling on Stripling’s Brady claim and order that he be retried on mental retardation and sentence.
1. The habeas court correctly ruled that the State violated Brady by suppressing parole records that contained material, exculpatory evidence regarding Stripling’s mental retardation. According to trial counsel, Stripling’s death penalty trial may have been the first where guilty but mentally retarded was a potential verdict. OCGA § 17-7-131 had only been enacted the previous year, and Georgia was the first state to forbid the execution of those criminals found to be mentally retarded.1 In preparation for Stripling’s trial, defense counsel researched mental retardation and Stripling’s background. Defense counsel also sought to obtain Stripling’s parole file because they believed there might be important evidence contained therein. “Records in the possession of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles are confidential. OCGA § 42-9-53.” Stripling , supra, 261 Ga. at 6 7. Pursuant to this Court’s holding in Pope v. State , 256 Ga. 195 22 345 SE2d 831 1986 policy reasons for preserving the secrecy of parole files must give way to capital defendant’s need to uncover and present mitigating evidence, the trial court in Stripling’s case received the parole file and evaluated it in camera. The trial court then informed the parties that there was relevant evidence in the parole file but that it was cumulative to the testimony of Stripling’s psychiatrist, who had testified in the competency trial that had preceded the death penalty trial. The trial court did not release the parole file and neither the prosecutor nor Stripling’s counsel saw its contents.
