Complaint No. 1779293811 - 2085478689

This complaint is submitted against Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Mary Robnett and the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for refusing to confirm, disclose, and operationalize known Brady/Giglio impeachment information concerning an Auburn Police Department officer, Matthew McNabb, credibly arrested and investigated for conduct constituting a crime of moral turpitude. Upon information and belief, the officer has been identified, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is aware of the officer’s identity, and the office has refused to confirm that identity to affected defendants, defense counsel, courts, and post-conviction parties whose cases involved the officer as an affiant, arresting officer, investigating officer, evidence-handling officer, reporting officer, or testifying witness.

The conduct at issue is not an ordinary personnel matter, privacy issue, or administrative inconvenience. It is impeachment evidence of constitutional significance. An arrest and prosecutorial review for communication with a minor for immoral purposes directly implicates character for lawfulness, judgment, credibility, bias, motive, and moral fitness to serve as a government witness. Where the implicated person is a commissioned law-enforcement officer whose reports, sworn statements, probable-cause narratives, search-warrant materials, testimony, or investigative acts have been used to obtain charges, pleas, convictions, sentencing enhancements, warrants, or restraints on liberty, the information becomes Brady/Giglio material requiring immediate review, preservation, disclosure, and notice.

The refusal to confirm the officer’s identity compounds the violation. The Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office cannot comply with Brady by privately knowing the identity of a compromised law-enforcement witness while preventing affected defendants from discovering whether that officer participated in their cases. Brady compliance is not satisfied by internal awareness, informal screening, discretionary silence, or delayed disclosure pending formal charging. Once the government possesses credible impeachment information concerning a law-enforcement witness, the prosecution must determine which cases were affected and provide timely notice sufficient for defense counsel, courts, convicted persons, and post-conviction counsel to make meaningful use of the information.

The Prosecuting Attorney and her office are therefore alleged to be engaged in an institutional Brady/Giglio failure by withholding the officer’s identity from the class of persons most directly entitled to know it: previously convicted defendants, currently charged defendants, defense counsel, post-conviction parties, and courts that relied upon the officer’s credibility, sworn statements, reports, or investigative work. This failure is especially serious because the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is not a neutral custodian of reputation; it is the constitutional disclosure authority responsible for ensuring that no conviction, plea, charge, warrant, or restraint of liberty is obtained or maintained through undisclosed impeachment evidence.

The office’s refusal frustrates the Supreme Court’s disclosure structure. Brady v. Maryland requires disclosure of favorable evidence material to guilt or punishment. Giglio v. United States extends that duty to impeachment evidence. United States v. Bagley confirms that evidence affecting witness credibility falls within Brady. Kyles v. Whitley imposes on prosecutors a duty to learn of favorable information known to police acting on the government’s behalf. Napue v. Illinois prohibits the state from allowing false or misleading testimony to stand uncorrected. These duties do not permit the Prosecuting Attorney to conceal the identity of a compromised officer until the office elects to file charges, media pressure forces disclosure, or individual defendants independently discover the officer’s role.

Upon information and belief, the officer’s prior cases include matters in which individuals were charged, detained, convicted, induced to plead guilty, sentenced, or otherwise subjected to government force on the strength of Auburn Police Department reports, sworn declarations, investigative files, or testimony. Each such matter requires Brady/Giglio review. The office must identify all cases in which the officer acted as a material witness, affiant, investigator, reporting officer, arresting officer, evidence custodian, or source of probable cause. The office must notify all affected defendants and defense counsel, disclose the impeachment information, notify courts where necessary, and provide a mechanism for post-conviction review where pleas, convictions, warrants, or sentences may have depended on the officer’s credibility or investigative conduct.

The Prosecuting Attorney’s refusal to confirm the officer’s identity also creates an appearance of law-enforcement favoritism and cooperative concealment. Ordinary defendants do not receive institutional anonymity after arrest when their identity bears directly on public proceedings. A law-enforcement officer whose alleged conduct creates Brady/Giglio consequences cannot be shielded by prosecutorial silence while the office continues to benefit from convictions, pleas, and pending prosecutions built on that officer’s work. Selective confidentiality places the reputation of a government witness above the due-process rights of accused and convicted persons.

This complaint therefore alleges prosecutorial misconduct, Brady/Giglio noncompliance, suppression of potential impeachment disclosure, failure to notify affected defendants, failure to initiate case review, and institutional concealment of material law-enforcement credibility evidence. The misconduct is attributable both to the elected Prosecuting Attorney and to the office as an institution because the disclosure failure concerns office policy, charging authority, case-screening authority, post-conviction responsibility, and the office’s continuing duty to correct proceedings affected by undisclosed impeachment evidence.

The appropriate remedy is immediate public confirmation sufficient to identify the officer for Brady/Giglio purposes; creation or publication of a Potential Impeachment Disclosure entry for the officer; notice to every currently charged defendant whose case involved the officer; notice to every previously convicted defendant whose conviction, plea, sentence, warrant, or restraint of liberty relied materially on the officer; disclosure to defense counsel and the courts; preservation of all communications concerning the officer’s arrest, screening, charging decision, administrative leave, and prior case participation; and appointment or designation of an independent review process where the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has a conflict created by its own prior reliance on the officer.

Absent affirmative, documented evidence of compliance in this highly public matter, the reasonable presumption is that the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney and the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office are not applying Brady/Giglio obligations consistently, timely, or constitutionally. If the office will not confirm, disclose, review, and notify affected parties where a law-enforcement officer has been credibly arrested for conduct bearing directly on moral turpitude, credibility, judgment, and testimonial reliability, there is no basis to presume compliance in less visible cases. Accordingly, noncompliance should be presumed in any prosecution, plea, conviction, warrant application, probation matter, or post-conviction proceeding that relies heavily or entirely on the testimony, reports, sworn declarations, investigative work, or credibility of any law-enforcement officer, unless the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office can produce case-specific evidence of full Brady/Giglio review, complete impeachment disclosure, and timely notice to the defense and the court.