Opinion ID: 1289100
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutional and common law background

Text: ถ 113 In examining evidentiary privileges, it is useful to set out some constitutional and common law background. ถ 114 Article XIV, Section 13 of the Wisconsin Constitution reads as follows: Such parts of the common law as are now in force in the territory of Wisconsin, not inconsistent with this constitution, shall be and continue part of the law of this state until altered or suspended by the legislature. ถ 115 This section was interpreted in Menne v. City of Fond Du Lac, 273 Wis. 341, 345, 77 N.W.2d 703 (1956): The common law in effect at the time of the adoption of our state constitution is difficult of definition. We do not think that it is confined to English statutes and the decisions of English courts.... Perhaps the term common law is broad enough to embrace customs and usages and legal maxims and principles in vogue at that time [statehood]. ถ 116 Although one could cite court decisions to the effect that the common law referred to in Section 13 is the common law as it existed, modified and amended by English statutes passed prior to the [American] revolution, Budd v. Hansen, 11 Wis.2d 248, 257, 105 N.W.2d 358 (1960) (quoting Coburn v. Harvey, 18 Wis. at 156 [], 162 [] (1864)), the better view is that the common law includes both pre-statehood English law and pre-statehood common law from other states, inasmuch as our courts have always been free to accept or reject common law from other jurisdictions. ถ 117 The point of this discussion is that pre-statehood common law, including the common law of evidentiary privileges, continues as part of the law of Wisconsin until such time as it has been displaced by the legislature or modified by court decision or rule. ถ 118 For centuries there has been an imprecise privilege relating to select governmental information. The deliberative process privilege originated in the principles underlying the English `crown privilege.' Russell L. Weaver & James T.R. Jones, The Deliberative Process Privilege, 54 Mo. L.Rev. 279, 283 (1989). The crown privilege makes secret such things as parliamentary deliberations, state secrets and papers, confidential proceedings of the Privy Council, and communications by or to public officials in the discharge of their public duties. Id. at 283 n. 24 (citation omitted). ถ 119 Part of the crown privilege was the protection from disclosure of the speeches of a member of the House of Commons. In Plunkett v. Cobbett, 5 Esp. N.P. 136, 170 Eng. Rep. 736 (K.B.1804), the court held that a witness called to prove the plaintiff's expressions in parliament was privileged from disclosing the tenor of the speeches. See 8 Wigmore, Evidence ง 2378(c), at 794 n. 3 (McNaughton rev.1961). ถ 120 McKelvey on Evidence gives the crown privilege a different label: State Secrets. The treatise provides: STATE SECRETS โ With respect to public matters, the privilege extends to public officers, their subordinates, and any who may be cognizant of such matters, though not in public office. . . . . State secrets consist of communications between public officers, transactions in public bodies, acts of the executive department, information obtained in the course of, or for the purpose of, the enforcement of the criminal law, and other like matters. John J. McKelvey, McKelvey on Evidence งง 226, 228, at 372 (West Publ'g Co., 2d ed.1907). ถ 121 McKelvey cites Worthington v. Scribner, 109 Mass. 487, 12 Am. Rep. 736 (1872), which reads in part: It is the duty of every citizen to communicate to his government any information which he has of the commission of an offense against its laws. To encourage him in performing this duty without fear of consequences, the law holds such information to be among the secrets of State, and leaves the question how far and under what circumstances the names of the informers and the channel of communication shall be suffered to be known, to the absolute discretion of the government, to be exercised according to its views of what the interests of the public require. Courts of justice therefore will not compel or allow the discovery of such information, either by the subordinate officer to whom it is given, by the informer himself, or by any other person, without the permission of the government. The evidence is excluded, not for the protection of the witness or of the party in the particular case, but upon general grounds of public policy, because of the confidential nature of such communications. Id. at 488-89 (emphasis added). ถ 122 Worthington cited, among many authorities, Rex v. Akers, 6 Esp. 125, 170 Eng. Rep. 850 (1790), which it described as the earliest case upon the subject. Worthington, 109 Mass. at 489. Worthington, in turn, has been approvingly cited in the opinions of the Wisconsin Attorney General. See 41 Wis. Op. Att'y Gen. 237, 241 (1952). [5] ถ 123 In his commentaries on evidence, Burr W. Jones, a professor of evidence at the College of Law of the University of Wisconsin and, later, a justice of this court, gives the privilege a still different name: Privileged communications โ Affairs of state. 4 Burr W. Jones, Commentaries on the Law of Evidence in Civil Cases ง 762(780), at 576 (Bancroft-Whitney Co.1914) (hereinafter Jones). Jones wrote in part: The President of the United States, the governors of the several states and their cabinet officers, are not bound to produce papers or disclose information committed to them, in a judicial inquiry, when, in their own judgment, the disclosure would, on public grounds, be inexpedient. On the same principle, the heads of the departments of national or state governments cannot be compelled to produce letters or documents as evidence, when, in their judgment, such production would be prejudicial to the public service. Nor can disclosure of communications between the heads of the departments of state and their subordinate officers be compelled. Id., ง 762(780), at 577-78 (footnotes omitted). Jones pointed to the leading case in the United States Supreme Court, Boske v. Comingore, 177 U.S. 459, 20 S.Ct. 701, 44 L.Ed. 846 (1900), where a collector of internal revenue had been imprisoned by order of a state court in Kentucky for refusing to produce to his office certain monthly reports of liquor manufactured by a certain manufacturer. Id. at 462-63, 20 S.Ct. 701. The Supreme Court ruled that imprisonment was improper and that the documents were privileged, and to a certain extent, quasi -confidential, communications, the use of which is limited to the purposes for which they are made, unless the parties interested consent to a more extensive use. Jones, supra, at 578-79 (summarizing the holding in Boske ). Professor Jones noted that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had followed and cited Boske in Meyer v. Home Insurance Co., 127 Wis. at 304, 106 N.W. 1087 (1906). Jones, supra, at 578 n. 97. ถ 124 Wigmore's treatise on evidence also recognized the state secrets privilege. Although critical of the privilege early on, Wigmore nonetheless asked: [I]s there still a genuine testimonial privilege which is to protect public officers from the disclosure of certain kinds of facts or communications received through their official duties? Some such privilege undoubtedly exists. 8 Wigmore, Evidence ง 2378(g), at 792 (McNaughton rev. 1961). ถ 125 One facet of the state secrets privilege is embodied in the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 5, Clause 3, which reads: Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy .... (Emphasis added.) The Wisconsin Constitution has a similar provision in Article IV, Section 10: Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings and publish the same, except such parts as require secrecy. The doors of each house shall be kept open except when the public welfare shall require secrecy.  (Emphasis added.) ถ 126 In United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974), the Supreme Court rejected the President's claim of an absolute executive privilege. Id. at 707, 94 S.Ct. 3090. Nonetheless, it recognized the existence of an executive privilege. See id. at 713-14, 94 S.Ct. 3090. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote of the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties; the importance of this confidentiality is too plain to require further discussion. Id. at 705, 94 S.Ct. 3090. Burger added that [h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process. Id. ถ 127 In a very significant passage, Burger wrote: The expectation of a President to the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence, like the claim of confidentiality of judicial deliberations ... has all the values to which we accord deference for the privacy of all citizens and, added to those values, is the necessity for protection of the public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decisionmaking. Id. at 708, 94 S.Ct. 3090 (emphasis added). ถ 128 My purpose in reviewing English common law and other sometimes-ancient precedent is not to contend what the law should be but to show what the law once was. ถ 129 The law has been changed dramatically by the enactment of public records and open meetings laws. The legislature, with the approval of the governor, passed the open meetings law in 1959. Ch. 289, Laws of 1959. The legislature, with the approval of the governor, created exceptions authorizing executive or closed sessions for various purposes, including considering employment, dismissal, promotion, demotion, compensation, licensing or discipline of any public employe or person licensed by a state board or commission or the investigation of charges against such person, unless an open meeting is requested by the employe or person charged, investigated or otherwise under discussion.  Wis. Stat. ง 14.90(3)(b) (1959) (emphasis added). The 1959 law was popularly known as the Anti-Secrecy Law. 49 Wis. Op. Att'y Gen. Introduction (1960). ถ 130 What is astounding about the majority opinion is that it contends that the legislature and the governor preserved nothing of the common law privilege of confidential deliberation in the 13 exemptions to the Anti-Secrecy open meetings law. Its conclusion is breathtaking because the very first exemption in Wis. Stat. ง 19.85(1)(a) authorizes closed sessions for courts. ถ 131 This court adopted the rules of evidence in 1973, more than a decade after the open meetings law was enacted. The court included elements of the state secrets privilege in Wis. Stat. งง 905.02, 905.09, and 905.10. There is no logical reason why the legislature did not see a deliberative process privilege as inherent or implicit in the exemptions it had created in Wis. Stat. ง 19.85(1). It certainly referenced an element of the legislative privilege of secret deliberation in Wis. Stat. ง 19.81(3). [6] ถ 132 This court may have full authority to regulate the scope of discovery vis-เ-vis courts and judicial branch agencies, but it cannot, by judicial rule, wipe out common law privileges that are inherent or implicit in statutes that apply to coordinate branches of government without raising serious separation of powers questions. The majority seems to be saying that a court could order the disclosure of deliberations during a legislative session at which the doors were closed. ถ 133 This court must also remember the limitations on its rulemaking powers. Wisconsin Stat. ง 751.12(1) clearly provides that court rules shall not abridge, enlarge, or modify the substantive rights of any litigant [including a governmental body in a different branch of government]. ถ 134 The Federal Advisory Committee's Note to the federal rules on privilege, printed as part of the introduction to Ch. 905, see 59 Wis.2d R1, R102-09, indicates that privileges created by state law are in some instances given greater status than previously in federal courts: The arguments advanced in favor of recognizing state privileges are: [in part] a state privilege is an essential characteristic of a relationship or status created by state law and thus is substantive in the Erie [R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938)] sense. Id. at R106 (emphasis added). In Davison v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 75 Wis.2d 190, 248 N.W.2d 433 (1977), the court declined to apply retroactively a new statute relating to civil immunity for persons evaluating health care providers and facilities and providing confidentiality of information acquired in such reviews. Id. at 199-201, 248 N.W.2d 433. The court explained that the long expressed general rule cited by this court is that statutes granting or rescinding substantive rights will not be given retroactive effect unless such intent was clearly expressed by the legislature. Id. at 200, 248 N.W.2d 433 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). ถ 135 On the basis of Davison and the Federal Note, the court cannot dismiss the wiping out of common law privileges affecting other branches of government as non-substantive.