Case Name: STATE v. Edward D. DiPRETE and Dennis L. DiPrete
Court: Supreme Court of Rhode Island
Jurisdiction: Rhode Island
Decision Date: 1998-05-01
Citations: 710 A.2d 1266
Docket Number: No. 97-167-C.A.
Parties: STATE v. Edward D. DiPRETE and Dennis L. DiPrete.
Judges: Before WEISBERGER, C.J., LEDERBERG and BOURCIER, JJ., and MURRAY and SHEA, JJ. (Ret.).
Reporter: West's Atlantic Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 710
Pages: 1266–1296

Head Matter:
STATE v. Edward D. DiPRETE and Dennis L. DiPrete.
No. 97-167-C.A.
Supreme Court of Rhode Island.
May 1, 1998.
Aaron Weisman, Assistant Attorney General, for Plaintiff.
Richard M. Egbert, R. Robert Popeo, Rosemary M. Allen, John K. Markey, Boston, MA, for Defendant.
Before WEISBERGER, C.J., LEDERBERG and BOURCIER, JJ., and MURRAY and SHEA, JJ. (Ret.).

Opinion:
OPINION
WEISBERGER, Chief Justice.
This case comes before us on an appeal by the state from a judgment of the Superior Court dismissing twenty-two counts of an indictment returned by a grand jury on March 24, 1994. The indictment charged former Governor Edward D. DiPrete and his son Dennis L. DiPrete with multiple acts of bribery and extortion. The indictment also named certain unindicted coconspirators including Rodney M. Brusini, Frank N. Zaino, and Michael W. Piccoli. Also at issue in this proceeding was Mathies J. Santos, whom the trial justice found either to have been immunized or to have been granted letters of nonprosecution or promises of nonprosecution by representatives of the Attorney General. The judgment of dismissal was imposed as a sanction for delayed discovery by the state. We are of the opinion that in the circumstances of this ease, the trial justice exceeded his authority in dismissing twenty-two counts of an indictment returned by a duly constituted grand jury. We therefore reinstate the counts and remand the case to the Superior Court for trial. The facts of the case insofar as pertinent to this appeal as found by the trial justice are as follows.
Following the indictment the parties entered into a stipulation on June 6, 1994, pursuant to which counsel for the state agreed to provide defendants with the testimony of prospective trial witnesses who appeared before any grand jury after 1991 if such testimony related to the subject matter of the instant indictment. Further the state agreed to provide defendants with written or recorded verbatim statements, signed or unsigned, made to investigators regardless of whether the person was expected to be a witness, other than those statements that were withheld on the basis of privilege. The state also agreed that if there were no written or recorded verbatim statements, summaries were to be provided, if available. Counsel for the state also agreed to make available to defendants all documents within the possession of the Department of the At-tomey General or the State Police that related to the subject matter of the indictment regardless of whether the state intended to introduce such documents as evidence at the trial. This stipulation recognized that the state would exclude mental impressions, conclusions, or opinions of investigators or attorneys and that such impressions, conclusions, or opinions could be redacted from documents that were provided. The stipulation did not preclude the filing of motions seeking further discovery or other pretrial relief by either party.
Pursuant to this stipulation the state produced over time approximately 600 boxes containing thousands of pages of documents that were generally relevant to the issues raised by the indictment. The 600 boxes of materials were provided during the years 1994 and 1995. On or about July 12, 1995, defendants filed fourteen motions for further discovery and for a bill of particulars. The state opposed certain of these motions on the ground that they exceeded defendants' right to discovery under Rule 16 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure or the stipulation. Included among these motions was a request for exculpatory evidence pursuant to the doctrine enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and its progeny. The trial justice held a hearing on August 24, 1995, and with the tacit consent of the state ordered with respect to all unindicted eoconspirators
"a full and complete statement of all promises, rewards, and/or inducements made in order to secure their cooperation in the investigation; a full and complete statement of the State's knowledge of any and all criminal conduct of the unindicted co-conspirators, including not only criminal convictions or pending criminal charges but also information on any known criminal conduct, whether or not that conduct had been the subject of a criminal charge; and any other information relating to a coconspirator's credibility as a witness such as prior inconsistent statements, ad missions of a poor memory, or evidence of bias on the part of the 'witness."
The court further ordered the state to produce similar materials in respect to any prospective witness as well as "any transcripts of grand-jury testimony by the witness[es] that was being withheld; and all notes of interviews with prospective witnesses taken by any agent of the state in the course of the investigation." The court ordered the notes to be produced for an in-camera review so that information relevant to ongoing investigations or otherwise privileged could be redacted. Although some of these requirements might arguably call for the disclosure of mental impressions, opinions, or conclusions on the part of counsel for the state, the orders were not appealed and therefore became the law of the case.
On November 10, 1995, defendants pressed a motion for exculpatory evidence presumably pursuant to the Brady doctrine. At that point counsel for the state asserted that the information required to be produced in the August 24, 1995 orders had been provided to the extent available. The state referred to previously produced immunity petitions and letters of nonprosecution. The trial justice later determined that these materials were inadequate to meet the full thrust of the discovery order.
At about that time the trial justice dismissed from the indictment all extortion-related charges. This order was appealed and subsequently reversed. State v. DiPrete, 682 A.2d 1373 (R.I.1996). Consequently a trial that was scheduled for May 13, 1996, in regard to the remaining counts was delayed. This ruling has no relevance to the instant appeal. It was merely referred to by the trial justice in his relation of the travel of the case.
On July 25,1996, in the course of a conference call among attorneys for the state, attorneys for defendants, and the court, reference was made to certain materials that had not been disclosed by the state because of a claim of privilege. The trial justice then verbally ordered the state to produce all such materials for in-camera review by the court. In response to this order counsel for the state, as an alternative to producing documents for in-camera review, offered to allow defense counsel to review all the materials in the state's possession. This offer was accepted, and on July 29, 1996, representatives of the Attorney General's office produced thirty boxes of materials containing approximately 68,000 pages of documents that had previously been withheld by the state and which contained exculpatory evidence. The trial justice found in his decision that knowledge of the exculpatory evidence contained in the thirty boxes had been earlier denied by the prosecutors. He further found that the state had argued that there was nothing in the thirty boxes that defendants did not already have in some form or another.
Defense counsel examined the contents of the thirty boxes, which included, according to the state, preparatory notes of witnesses who had been interviewed in preparation for the trial scheduled for May 1996, which trial did not take place. Thereafter the state filed a supplemental response to defendants' motion for exculpatory evidence in which it set forth knowledge of criminal conduct (peijury) on the part of Rodney Brusini that had come to light subsequent to his testimony in March 1992 before a grand jury investigating activities of Joseph Mollicone, Jr. (Mollicone), and the Heritage Loan Company.
Defense counsel and their agents extracted eighty-nine exhibits from the thirty boxes of material that had been provided by the state. The trial justice found that the most important exhibits related to three unindicted co-conspirators, Rodney M. Brusini (Brusini), Frank N. Zaino (Zaino), and Michael W. Piccoli (Piccoli), who were all granted immunity or a letter of nonprosecution by the Department of the Attorney General, and to Mathies J. Santos (Santos), who was granted a promise of nonproseeution.
On the basis of these findings, defense counsel moved for sanctions, claiming that the information extracted from the materials provided on July 29, 1996, included information previously ordered to be produced on August 24, 1995. Counsel for defendants alleged that the extracted materials showed that the state knew Brusini had committed perjury in March of 1992, that he had filed false documents with the State Ethics Commission, that he had committed tax fraud, that he had overbilled the state for work done, and that he had committed insurance fraud.
The defendants also alleged that the state had withheld evidence of knowledge of tax fraud on the part of Zaino, that attorneys for the state assisted Zaino in amending a 1991 state tax return and were aware that Zaino had filed a false affidavit concerning his financial affairs with the Rhode Island Family Court during divorce proceedings, and that he had maintained a secret bank account at Rhode Island Hospital Trust Bank in order to hide money from his wife during the pen-dency of their divorce. The defendants also claimed that the state was aware of other crimes committed by Zaino.
In respect to Piccoli the recently provided materials indicated that a representative of the Attorney General's office had sought lenient treatment at a sentencing hearing wherein Piccoli had pleaded guilty to defrauding the city of Cranston of an alleged sum exceeding $1 million. The defendants asserted that these materials indicated that the state recommended that Piccoli receive no jail time and make a restitution payment of only $135,000, significantly less than the amount he had fraudulently obtained. Counsel for defendants further claimed that the state knew of other criminal conduct that had been committed by Piccoli in connection with both construction projects for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation and his position at the Rhode Island Solid Waste Management Corporation.
In regard to Santos, defendants alleged in their motion for sanctions that the state knew that he had committed the crimes of bribery and extortion and had a conflict of interest in connection with his receipt of a $142,000 loan on favorable terms from Molli-cone at a time when Santos as a state official was taking actions that benefited Mollicone. The defendants claimed that Santos was instrumental in obtaining a state agency as a tenant for a building owned by Mollicone and sought to obtain other tenancies that would benefit Mollicone. The defendants further claimed that the state's refraining from prosecution of Santos for bank fraud in connection with his loan application constituted a promise, reward, or inducement that should have been disclosed.
The state contended that all this information was available in other forms within the massive amount of discovery provided in the 600 boxes of materials furnished pursuant to the parties' stipulation and earlier orders of the court. The trial justice rejected the state's contentions and found, after the conclusion of a thirty-two-day evidentiary hearing, that counsel for the state had not fully complied with the orders of the court, Rule 16 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, the stipulation of the parties, and the Brody principles. He found that this withholding of information caused defendants to suffer substantive prejudice that warranted a remedy beyond a mere continuance. He found that the critical information had been gleaned from ten of the thirty boxes produced in July of 1996 and that most of the material came from the working files of former chief prosecutor Richard Ratcliffe, state investigator Peter Blessing, and State Police Sergeant Robert Mattos.
Although the court adverted to substantive prejudice that the delayed discovery had imposed upon defendants, his only specific finding in respect to prejudice is contained on page 31 of his decision. The court accepted the allegations of counsel for defendants that their inquiry into the content of the withheld documents and their requesting sanctions therefor caused them to reveal elements of their trial strategy to the prosecutors dining this hearing by indicating exactly how the withheld material is exculpatory and how it would be used at trial to impeach the state's witnesses.
The defendants' counsel claimed that they were forced to surrender the element of surprise that is vital to effective cross-examination in their effort to ensure that their clients' constitutional rights to exculpatory information prior to trial be protected. The defendants argued to the court that this result, thrust upon them by prosecutorial misconduct, constituted substantive prejudice, which a continuance for any length of time could not cure.
The trial justice apparently accepted the arguments of defendants and summarized his holding in the following terms:
"Since the court has found that there has been a pattern of deliberate misconduct resulting in repeated violation of Super. Ct. R.Crim. P. 16, Brady principles, the stipulation between the parties, and the court's orders, all counts of the indictment except the severed counts 28 and 24 are dismissed."
ANALYSIS
The arguments presented by the state in support of its appeal can be considered by analyzing three issues. First, the state contends that the Brady principles do not support the trial justice's drastic remedy of dismissal of twenty-two counts of the indictment. Second, the state argues that Rule 16 and the case law in interpretation thereof does not support the judgment of dismissal. Third, the state asserts that the Superior Court has no general supervisory power that would support the judgment of dismissal. We shall consider each of these contentions in turn.
Brady Principles
The seminal case of Brady v. Maryland, supra, determined that the withholding of evidence favorable to the accused either in respect to the issue of guilt or the issue of appropriate punishment to be imposed at sentencing violated the guarantee of due process regardless of the good faith or the bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1196-97, 10 L.Ed.2d at 218. The remedy imposed upon the State of Maryland was the vacating of the sentence and the ordering of a new trial, which would be restricted to the question of punishment. Id. at 85, 83 S.Ct. at 1195, 10 L.Ed.2d at 217. Prior to Brady, the Court in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959), ordered a new trial in the light of evidence that false testimony had been presented at trial in regard to the reward or benefit accorded to a prosecution witness. The Court held that this false testimony constituted a denial of due process, entitling the defendant to a new trial if there was any reasonable likelihood that the judgment of the jury could be affected. Id. at 272, 79 S.Ct. at 1179, 3 L.Ed.2d at 1223. A similar result was reached in Giles v. Maryland, 386 U.S. 66, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737 (1967), wherein evidence of a prior inconsistent statement of a rape victim was undisclosed.
In United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985), the Brady doctrine was extended to impeaching as well as exculpatory evidence that might be available to the accused. The Court held that failure to disclose such impeaching evidence when requested would constitute constitutional error only if it deprived the defendant of a fair trial. Id. at 676-78, 105 S.Ct. at 3380-81, 87 L.Ed.2d at 490-91. In that case the Court adopted a standard of materiality that would require a new trial only if the excluded evidence created "a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 682, 105 S.Ct. at 3383, 87 L.Ed.2d at 494. A reasonable probability was defined as a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Id. The Court then remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to determine whether the materiality test had been met with the clear indication that if that question was answered in the affirmative, the remedy would be a new trial. Id. at 684, 105 S.Ct. at 3385, 87 L.Ed.2d at 495.
Earlier in Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 559, 97 S.Ct. 837, 845-46, 51 L.Ed.2d 30, 42 (1977), a civil action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Court pointed out that the Brady doctrine did not create a constitutional right to discovery. In that case the concealment of an undercover agent's role as a potential witness, although he was a code-fendant (to protect his cover), did not constitute a denial of a fair trial. Id. at 560-61, 97 S.Ct. at. 846, 51 L.Ed.2d at 42-43.
The most recent case under the Brady rubric was Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 432-40, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 1565-69, 131 L.Ed.2d 490, 505-10 (1995), wherein the Court held that the government had a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence even in the absence of a request, if the withheld evidence considered as a whole results in a reasonable probability that a different result would have obtained. The Court recognized that this obligation would exist regardless of the good faith or the bad faith of the prosecution and even if the police have failed to disclose the exculpatory evidence to the prosecuting attorney. Id. In that case there was a failure to disclose the fact that the defendant's car was not identified by a registration tag in the parking lot just after the incident. Moreover, the prosecution had introduced a photograph of the scene purporting to show the defendant's car. The government also withheld statements taken right after the incident that were entirely contrary to the testimony given at the trial. There was also a failure to disclose that the eyewitnesses who identified the defendant as the killer had given descriptions inconsistent with their testimony at trial; their earlier statements to police describing more closely another person who was connected with the crime. Id. at 441-51, 115 S.Ct. at 1569-74, 131 L.Ed.2d at 510-16. In that case, the Court held that the materiality test had been met and ordered as a remedy the reversal of the conviction and a remand for a new trial. Id. at 442,115 S.Ct. at 1560,131 L.Ed.2d at 498.
Numerous other cases might be cited expressing similar rationales in application of the Brady doctrine. See, e.g., United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112-14, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2401-02, 49 L.Ed.2d 342, 354-56 (1976) (materiality standard enunciated but no new trial ordered because there was no sustainable inference of perjury); Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 151-52, 92 S.Ct. 763, 764-65, 31 L.Ed.2d 104, 106-07 (1972) (ordering new trial where promise of leniency to a government witness not disclosed).
Our Rhode Island implementation of the Brady principles was first enunciated in In re Ouimette, 115 R.I. 169, 342 A.2d 250 (1975). In that case after a comprehensive survey of the eases preceding and subsequent to Brady, this Court adopted a rationale enunciated in United States v. Kahn, 472 F.2d 272, 287 (2d Cir.1973), in which the court suggested that a defendant "must show there is a significant chance that the use and development of the withheld evidence by skilled counsel at trial would have produced a reasonable doubt in the minds of enough jurors to avoid a conviction." Ouimette, 115 R.I. at 179, 342 A.2d at 254-55. This test was adopted for determining whether a conviction should be set aside for the withholding of exculpatory evidence in circumstances in which the withholding was nondeliberate. The Court then remanded the case to the Superior Court in order to determine whether the legal principles enunciated would warrant a new trial. Id. at 181, 342 A.2d at 256. In State v. Wyche, 518 A.2d 907, 911 (R.I. 1986), we expressed the principle that a deliberate withholding of evidence by the prosecution would entitle the defendant to a new trial without the necessity of establishing prejudice. This rule was applicable pursuant to the Brady doctrine as well as Rule 16.
All the foregoing cases indicate beyond doubt that the Brady principles have no relevance to pretrial discovery. Under Brady the denial of due process is ripe for consideration only in the event that an accused has been convicted of an offense in circumstances in which the nondisclosure of exculpatory or impeaching evidence was deliberate or, when viewed in the context of the totality of the state's proof in the case, would have a material effect upon the outcome or would create a significant chance that such exculpatory or impeaching evidence in the hands of skilled counsel would have created a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. In sum the Brady doctrine creates a post-trial remedy and not a pretrial remedy and is therefore not relevant to the issues raised by this appeal.
Rule 16-Discovery
In all the Rhode Island cases cited by the state and by defendants save one that will be considered later, the issue presented to the Court was whether discovery violations would warrant the reversal of a conviction and the ordering of a new trial. Such a new trial was ordered for failure to disclose an incriminating statement by the defendant in State v. Darcy, 442 A.2d 900, 903 (R.I.1982). A similar remedy was provided for nondisclosure in State v. Verlaque, 465 A.2d 207, 212-14 (R.I.1983), wherein the state furnished defense counsel with the names of fifty-three witnesses on the eve of trial without summarizing their testimony, in clear violation of the motion for discovery. Similarly in State v. Coelho, 454 A.2d 241 (R.I.1982), a new trial was ordered because of the trial justice's refusal to grant a continuance in the light of the failure of the state to complete the furnishing of discovery material until the eleventh hour. In that case we pointed out that the trial justice could have mitigated the obvious prejudice caused to this defendant by granting a continuance. Id. at 246. In State v. Brisson, 619 A.2d 1099 (R.I.1998), the defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct. The alleged misconduct consisted of the prosecutor's nondisclosure of redacted sections of records of the Department of Children and Their Families (DCF). Id. at 1102. This nondisclosure was in violation of an order of a justice of the Superior Court that required the production of these records in a case involving a charge of first-degree sexual assault.' This Court concluded that the redacting of the DCF records amounted to inadvertent nondisclosure and, referring to the four-part test contained in State v. Coelho, supra, denied the relief requested by the defendant, even assuming arguendo that there was negligence or bad faith on the part of the prosecution. Brisson, 619 A.2d at 1103-04. The relief was denied because the defendant failed to demonstrate prejudice. Id. The analysis in Brisson more or less combined the Brady principles and the Coelho doctrine relating to a Rule 16 violation. The Court reenunciated the Coelho factors as follows:
"The trial justice should consider '(1) the reason for nondisclosure, (2) the extent of prejudice to the opposing party, (3) the feasibility of rectifying that prejudice by a continuance, and (4) any other relevant factors.' " Brisson, 619 A.2d at 1102 (quoting Coelho, 454 A.2d at 245).
A motion for new trial for discovery and/or Brady violations was granted in State v. Wyche, 518 A.2d at 910-11, for failure to provide the results of a blood test showing the alcohol content of the complaining witness that would have been of assistance to the defense and in the light of deliberate nondisclosure by the prosecution. A new trial was granted in State v. Evans, 668 A.2d 1256, 1260 (R.I.1996), for unintended nondisclosure of promises made to the sole prosecution witness in exchange for his testimony. The foregoing cases indicate that the remedy for deliberate or negligent violation of discovery orders has generally been the vacating of a conviction and the ordering of a new trial.
It is of extreme importance in the case at bar to recognize that this is delayed discovery, not denied discovery. In all the cases in which this Court has ordered a new trial for discovery rule violations or failures, the defendants were subjected to greater disadvantages than were defendants in the case at bar in that they were required to undergo a trial and a determination of guilt. Nevertheless, the remedy of a new trial was considered adequate and appropriate by this Court.
However, in State v. Quintal, 479 A.2d 117 (R.I.1984), the trial justice did dismiss an indictment in unique circumstances for failure to obey an order of the Superior Court. Id. at 118. In that case the defendant was charged -with third-degree sexual assault. He had sought discovery pursuant to Rule 16 of medical reports pertaining to the mental health and gynecological history of the complaining witness. The motion was granted by the trial justice on November 9,1981. On January 8, 1982, defense counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the state had failed to comply with the discovery order. The motion to dismiss was not heard until June 25,1982. In the interim some records had been provided, but clearly the records were not complete. At the hearing a justice of the Superior Court treated the defendant's motion to dismiss as a motion to compel production and granted it. This order was entered July 1, 1982. 479 A.2d at 118.
The state subsequently produced some additional records but did not completely satisfy the orders of November 9,1981, and June 25, 1982. At a pretrial conference on November 23,1982, the trial justice ordered the state to produce the psychiatric records requested by defense counsel. The justice entered a conditional sixty-day order, specifying that if the state failed to comply with the court's command, the case would be automatically dismissed with prejudice. It is important to note that the state agreed to the entry of this conditional order. The order was entered on November 30,1982, setting January 24, 1983, as the deadline for compliance. Id. at 118.
The state failed to provide the materials ordered within the time limited by the conditional order. The Superior Court justice granted a motion to dismiss on January 26, 1983. Thereafter the state moved to vacate the order of dismissal. Id. at 118. The motion to vacate was denied. Id. at 119. This Court upheld the denial to vacate the dismissal. In so doing, we stated that "[a]b-sent enforcement of such self-executing orders, 'the sanctions would have no meaning, and parties would be allowed to ignore the discovery rules and orders issued pursuant to them.' " Id. at 120 (quoting State v. DiPrete, 468 A.2d 262, 265 (R.I.1983)).
The trial justice in the case at bar relied heavily upon State v. Quintal in determining that he had the authority to dismiss twenty-two counts of the subject indictment. With this interpretation we must respectfully disagree. We believe that State v. Quintal cannot be extended beyond the particular facts upon which it was based. In that ease the conditional order of dismissal, to which the state agreed, requiring the production of certain defined and discrete materials was, as we suggested, self-executing. Quintal, 479 A.2d at 120. The state's failure to comply with such an order could have but one result, namely, the implementation of the condition of the order, entry of final judgment.
In the case at bar we accept the trial justice's findings that the state failed to comply with the discovery order that required disclosure of the state's knowledge of criminal conduct engaged in by its principal witnesses, Brusini, Zaino, Piccoli, and Santos, until the furnishing of the thirty boxes of material on July 29,1996. We further accept the trial justice's finding that the state was not completely forthcoming in detailing its agreements not to prosecute Brusini, Zaino, Piccoli, and Santos for various criminal activities until the material was provided on July 29,1996. We are also mindful that additional discovery was provided during the thirty-two-day hearing on the motion for sanctions. We also take into account the fact that the trial justice authorized subpoenas purportedly pursuant to Rule 17(c) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure. These subpoenas, as disclosed in subsequent depositions, enabled counsel for defendants to obtain significant additional information, some of which may not have been known to the state.
Consequently, prior to the conclusion of the sanction hearings, counsel for defendants had all the information that they had requested in their supplemental motions for discovery that had been granted on August 24,1995. In this posture the trial justice was constrained in determining sanctions to consider the four-part test set forth in State v. Coelho. Without question he determined that the failure of complete discovery was deliberate. He then considered whether a continuance would be sufficient to cure the discovery violations and found that it was not. He also considered whether there had been prejudice to defendants and the feasibility of rectifying that prejudice by continuance. We recognize that in the context of the granting of a new trial, the Coelho doctrine does not require that prejudice be shown when nondisclosure by the prosecutor is deliberate. See State v. Garcia, 643 A.2d 180, 187 (R.I.1994); Wyche, 518 A.2d at 911. Coelho and the cases in interpretation thereof, however, do not address the criteria for dismissal of an indictment. The sole prejudice specifically found by the trial justice was that the defense counsel were forced, in moving for sanctions, to disclose their strategy. We think this prejudice is insufficient.
The disclosure of the defense strategy was brought about not by the delay in discovery but by defendants' voluntary actions in seeking sanctions. When the material produced in the thirty boxes plus the fruits of the Rule 17(c) subpoenas were made available to defendants, the state had provided all materials that defendants had requested. The defendants could have used these materials to prepare for trial. However, defendants chose to seek the ultimate sanction of dismissal. It was in pursuance of this goal that their strategy was disclosed. Moreover, we are of the opinion that the disclosure of this strategy was of minimal .prejudice since it would be apparent to any skilled advocate that impeaching materials relating to criminal conduct and/or promises and rewards would be utilized by defendants to the greatest extent possible in cross-examination. It should also be noted that under our liberal rules of discovery, see Wyche, 518 A.2d at 910 (recognizing that Rule 16 is one of the "most liberal criminal discovery mechanisms in the United States"), defendants' strategy is no more beyond disclosure than is the strategy of the state. Trial by ambush is no longer available to either side.
Consequently we are of the opinion that the sanctions available to the trial justice included neither that of excluding the testimony of the state's witnesses nor the ultimate sanction of dismissal. The trial justice observed in his decision that he could not be sure that all discovery had been provided even at the close of the hearing. Under the provisions of Rule 16(i) the trial justice had ample authority to preclude any evidence that might be offered at trial that had not already been provided pursuant to the aggressive steps taken by counsel for the defense and implemented by the court.
In the event that the trial justice was of the opinion that defendants were required to expend additional resources in order to achieve full discovery, the court might have awarded an appropriate counsel fee for such additional time as might have been spent in seeking full discovery.
However, in the circumstances of this case it is the opinion of this Court that the trial justice did not have the authority to dismiss twenty-two counts of this indictment. We are not testing this order under an abuse-of-discretion standard. We hold to the contrary that there was an insufficient basis upon which the trial justice could enter an order of dismissal. Therefore, his discretion in this context was not called into action. We are of the opinion that only in extraordinary circumstances such as were present in State v. Quintal would a trial justice have the authority to dismiss an indictment for delayed discovery. Those circumstances were not present in this case.
Supervisory Power
The defendants have asserted that the Superior Court, like Federal District Courts, has an inherent supervisory power that would enable justices of the Superior Court to take such actions as may be necessary to vindicate their authority, even though such actions may not be specifically authorized by constitution or rule. We concur with the general proposition that justices of the Superior Court have inherent power to govern proceedings before them and to vindicate their authority by appropriate sanctions including the sanction of contempt.
However, the Supreme Court of the United States, which recognizes the supervisory authority of Federal District Courts also limits that authority within appropriate parameters. For example, in United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 505-07, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1978-79, 76 L.Ed.2d 96, 104-05 (1983), the Supreme Court cautioned that the court's supervisory power was improperly exercised as a means of disciplining prosecutors for error that was not prejudicial to the defendants. In that case the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had reversed a conviction for prosecutorial misconduct in violating the Fifth Amendment rights of the defendant and declined to apply the harmless-error rule. Id. at 503, 103 S.Ct. at 1977, 76 L.Ed.2d at 102-03. The Supreme Court admonished the court below that "reversals of convictions under the court's supervisory power must be approached "with some caution,' and with a view toward balancing the interests involved." Id. at 506-07, 103 S.Ct. at 1979, 76 L.Ed.2d at 105. A fortiori the supervisory power exercised in dismissing an indictment must be exercised with maximum caution. Earlier, in United States v. Blue, 384 U.S. 251, 255, 86 S.Ct. 1416, 1419, 16 L.Ed.2d 510, 514-15 (1966), the Court reversed the dismissal of an indictment by a District Court on the ground that the government had acquired incriminating evidence in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Court held that the sanction of dismissal went too far, even if one assumed that there had been a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Court suggested that although exclusionary rules might bar the admission of testimony obtained in violation of constitutional safeguards, the remedy does not extend to barring the prosecution altogether. Id. The Court suggested that such a drastic step would "increase to an intolerable degree interference with the public interest in having the guilty brought to book." Id. at 255, 86 S.Ct. at 1419, 16 L.Ed.2d at 515.
In United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 730-31, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 2443-44, 65 L.Ed.2d 468, 473 (1980), a federal district judge who was outraged by prosecutorial misconduct in violating the Fourth Amendment rights of a person not before the court exercised supervisory power to exclude the use of evidence obtained by this misconduct against the defendant. The Supreme Court made it clear that the defendant could complain only about violation of his own Fourth Amendment right and that the supervisory power could not be used to create an exclusionary rule. Id.
This Court cited United States v. Payner in State v. Jackson, 570 A.2d 1115, 1116-17 (R.I.1990) (per curiam), when we declined to be persuaded by the decision of the Federal District Court of Rhode Island that created its own exclusionary rule barring admissibility of records for a violation of G.L.1956 § 12-1-12 in the context of a civil rights action. We held that a corut had no supervisory power to create an exclusionary rule not authorized by the Legislature. 570 A.2d at 1116-17.
In United States v. Santana, 6 F.3d 1, 9-11 (1st Cir.1993), Federal Circuit Judge Sel-ya reviewed the supervisory power that was used to dismiss a count of the complaint for a purported violation of the due-process clause relating to a third person. He suggested that the supervisory power should be used sparingly. Id. He further suggested that pursuant to Payner; United States v. Hasting, supra, and Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988), federal courts should refrain from using the supervisory power to make executive conduct conform to judicially preferred norms by dismissing charges absent a cognizable prejudice to a particular defendant. 6 F.3d at ll.
Thus it appears in federal jurisprudence that the use of supervisory power would not permit a court in the federal system to create exclusionary rules not otherwise constitutionally authorized or to dismiss indictments in the absence of both outrageous conduct and demonstrable and otherwise incurable prejudice. Our opinion in State v. Jackson, supra, would indicate that this Court would also hold the supervisory power within similarly narrow limits. When we refer to an exclusionary rule as strong medicine, we would certainly regard dismissal of an indictment or numerous counts thereof to constitute even stronger medicine that would necessarily rest on a constitutional, statutory, or other imperative created by a court rule rather than the inherent supervisory power.
We recognize that the trial justice in the case at bar reached a conscientious determination that the remedy of dismissal was authorized by our opinion in Quintal. Our limiting of the holding in that case to its particular facts will serve as a guide to trial justices in reserving the extreme and ultimate sanction of dismissal only to situations in which there has been flagrant prosecutorial misconduct accompanied by severe and incurable prejudice. During the course of the trial justice's thirty-two-day hearing and in his comprehensive and careful findings of fact set forth in his written decision, it is apparent that he was justifiably displeased at the state's conduct of its discovery obligations. Failure to communicate effectively among the members of the Attorney General's staff, reliance upon the assumption that prior members of the prosecutorial team had conducted exhaustive searches of documents, and failure to express with full candor the knowledge of criminal conduct on the part of significant witnesses brought forth appropriate critical comment from the trial justice.
We must bear in mind that when a grand > jury returns an indictment, the people of the State of Rhode Island are entitled to have the issues of fact and the issues of guilt or innocence tried on their merits. The punishment' of an errant prosecutor by dismissal of the charges is in effect a punishment imposed upon the people of this state. Only in the most extraordinary of circumstances should the people of Rhode Island be deprived of their right to a trial of these charges.
For the reasons stated, the appeal of the state is sustained. The judgment of the Superior Court dismissing twenty-two counts of the indictment is hereby vacated. The case is remanded to the Superior Court for trial on the merits_
FLANDERS and GOLDBERG, JJ., recused themselves from participation in this case.
. The remaining two counts of the indictment alleging perjury were dismissed on June 25, 1997, and are not involved in this appeal.
. We observe that Rule 16(i) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides sanctions for failure to comply, does not include dismissal as a sanction. The rule states that in such circumstances "it [the court] may order such party to provide the discovery or inspection, grant a continuance, or prohibit the party from introducing in evidence the material which or testimony of a witness whose identity or statement were not disclosed, or it may enter such other order as it deems appropriate."
In expressing the applicable sanctions, Rule 16(i) differs markedly from Rule 37 of the Supe rior Court Rules of Civil Procedure which specifically authorizes the cohrt to dismiss a plaintiff's claim or to default a defendant if an order compelling discovery is not complied with within a specified time frame. Although the catchall provision of Rule 16(i) is suggested by defendants to include the power of dismissal, we would suggest that such strong medicine as dismissal should seldom be utilized when a less drastic sanction would secure obedience to the court's orders. Federal courts of appeal have enunciated and followed these principles. See, e.g., United States v. Dennison, 891 F.2d 255 (10th Cir.1989); United States v. Jacobs, 855 F.2d 652 (9th Cir.1988); United States v. White, 846 F.2d 678 (11th Cir.1988). In Jacobs the court stated:
"Because the drastic step of dismissing an indictment is a disfavored remedy. United States v. Rogers, 751 F.2d 1074, 1076-77 (9th Cir.1985), a district court may properly dismiss an indictment only if the prosecutorial misconduct (1) was flagrant, United States v. Carrasco, 786 F.2d 1452, 1455 (9th Cir.1986), and (2) caused substantial prejudice to the defendant. Rogers, 751 F.2d at 1077. Incases involving prosecutorial misconduct which is neither flagrant nor prejudicial, a district judge can still sanction the misconduct, but the sanction chosen must be proportionate to the misconduct." Jacobs, 855 F.2d at 655.
. In the course of his dissent, our brother. Justice Bourcier, asserts that we have been unable to find any abuse of discretion on the part of the trial justice in this case. Since our opinion clearly states that he had no authority to dismiss twenty-two counts of this indictment based upon the factual context presented to him, we held that his discretion was not called into action. Consequently, we had no reason to seek to determine whether there was an abuse of a discretion that we believed did not exist in these circumstances.
Our brother also emphasizes the significance of the case of State v. Rawlinson, 526 A.2d 1278 (R.I.1987). This per curiam opinion sheds little light on the issues that were previously presented to this Court. In that case a justice of the Superior Court had dismissed an information for persistent failure by the state to produce a copy of a search warrant and certain statements of anticipated state witnesses although ordered by the justice to do so on more than one occasion with specific time limits expressed for compliance. It should be noted that within days of the dismissal the state filed a new information against the same defendant. Subsequent to filing the new information the state purported to appeal the dismissal of the first information. The defendant moved for dismissal of the second information before the justice who had entered the order of dismissal in respect to the first information. This motion was denied. Thereafter, the state's appeal from the dismissal of the first information was apparently withdrawn. The defendant was then tried, convicted, and appealed asserting that the dismissal of the first information precluded trial on the second information. In response to this appeal we issued the unpublished order to which our brother alludes in his dissent.
The somewhat convoluted and confusing history of the Rawlinson case should not expand its significance beyond the narrow issue it presented. The sole question before us at that time was whether the initial information had been dismissed with prejudice. We remanded the case so that the trial justice could make that determination. In any event, the appropriateness of the dismissal of the first information was never presented to us in an adversary context.
Consequently this case is a weak reed upon which to base a sweeping statement that this court has long recognized the discretionary authority of a trial justice to dismiss either an indictment or an information save under the most extraordinary and compelling circumstances that were not presented in the case at bar. All other Rhode Island cases cited, save Quintal, dealt only with issues of motions for mistrial, new trial, or the exclusion of evidence, as we have pointed out elsewhere in this opinion.
. We recognize that the cases cited are distinguishable on their facts from the case at bar. Nevertheless they do indicate a strong line of authority established by the Supreme Court of the United States and the Federal Courts of Appeal to the effect that the supervisory power cannot create new rules of exclusion or dismissal in the absence of a constitutional or statutory basis for such a ruling.