Law360 (July 29, 2026, 10:03 PM EDT) -- The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday held that one of its opinions concerning requests for retrial due to newly discovered evidence has a higher threshold than the similar U.S. Supreme Court landmark case Brady v. Maryland.

The state high court's decision, in 1981's State v. Carter , calls for a new trial if evidence discovered after trial would "probably" change the jury's verdict. Brady , meanwhile, deals with suppressed favorable evidence by the prosecution and requires only that the evidence have "a reasonable probability" of changing the jury's verdict.

In its ruling Wednesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court corrected an appellate court's opinion in a murder appeal, which said Brady and Carter had the same materiality standards. The state high court affirmed the appellate court's decision not to grant a retrial in the case, however, saying defendant Yusuf Allen did not meet Brady's lower standard.

The case stems from the 1997 killing of Lannie Silver Jr. Silver was shot while trying to buy drugs with Ruby Waller — who would later be a key state witness in the case.

Allen was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 30 years before he can be eligible for parole. He has since appealed on several grounds in state and federal courts.

In the instant appeal, he contended that prosecutors failed to disclose that Waller had taken a plea agreement in an unrelated case in 1991 that called for her to testify against her co-defendant — a fact that he claimed could have been used to impeach her testimony.

At the time of his trial, Waller was facing new municipal shoplifting charges. The defense suggested that her previously unknown history shows she may have agreed to testify against him to curry favor with prosecutors.

Prosecutors, however, argued that there was no evidence that she testified in Allen's case as a result of any plea deal, nor was there evidence that it benefited her in the shoplifting case, and that Allen could not satisfy Carter.

The court denied Allen's motion based on a "detailed review of Carter's three-prong test," according to the high court's opinion.

Carter holds that the evidence must be material, discovered since the trial and not discoverable by reasonable diligence beforehand, and "of the sort that would probably change the jury's verdict if a new trial were granted," the opinion said.

On appeal, Allen argued that his motion should have been brought under Brady, not Carter. The appellate division affirmed the lower court's decision, but remanded it in part. However, the appellate court ruled that the motion court should have evaluated the claims under Brady, but that the error was harmless because the materiality and harmless error elements in the two cases were practically the same.

Brady claims require three elements: The evidence must be exculpatory or impeaching and favorable to the defense; it must have been suppressed by the state; and it must be material. A later ruling defined materiality as having a "reasonable probability" that the conviction or sentence would have been different if the evidence had been disclosed, the opinion said.

Allen appealed to the state's high court, arguing that the appellate court erred in finding the materiality standards in Carter and Brady are the same. The state high court granted the petition.

In Wednesday's opinion, Justice Rachel Wainer Apter wrote that Allen still failed to meet Brady's less-stringent standard.

"It would have been particularly nonsensical for Waller to perjure herself at defendant's trial in the hopes of gaining leniency on a municipal court shoplifting charge" because she faced a maximum punishment of a $500 fine, the opinion said. Perjury, meanwhile, had a maximum punishment of five years in prison, she wrote.

She added that "we are confident that even if Waller's 1991 plea form had been disclosed to the defense, the jury's verdict would have been the same."

The defendant is represented by Lucas Slevin and Jennifer Sellitti of the Office of the New Jersey Public Defender, and Stephen Kirsch.

The government is represented by Milton Leibowitz, William Daniel and Michele Buckley of the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

The case is State v. Yusuf B. Allen, case number A-7-25, in the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

--Editing by Linda Voorhis.

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