Opinion ID: 2283054
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Court of Appeals' Consideration of the Merits

Text: Appellant also complains that [t]he Court of Appeals made no effort to consider whether the petition had any merit; that is, whether [the lower court] had made any error. This too is incorrect. In fact, the Court of Appeals skipped over the initial steps required by Hoskins and directly considered the merits. Immediately after describing the Hoskins test, the Court of Appeals wrote: In this matter, Gilbert has failed to demonstrate that he is entitled to relief by means of a writ of mandamus because he cannot demonstrate that the Jefferson Circuit Court has acted erroneously in denying his motion to grant him access to all of the sealed discovery in the criminal prosecution of Cecil New. (Emphasis added.) The court went on to state that RCr 7.24 entitles a criminal defendant to inspect only those materials that may be material to the preparation of a defense, including material exculpatory evidence. The court then noted, as the circuit court had, that the Commonwealth had filed discovery in Appellant's own case and had a continuing duty to provide any and all material exculpatory evidence to Gilbert. The court then concluded that Appellant had failed to show that his request to review the entire discovery filed in New's case was reasonable and that he could only speculate that some of the information would assist him in his defense. Basically, the Court of Appeals did exactly what Appellant claims it did not: it addressed the merits of his claim that the circuit court erred, holding that he had not demonstrated an entitlement to the discovery material in question. In fact, it prematurely addressed the merits by failing to first analyze whether the writ was even available. Assuming that Appellant could not show that the writ was available under Hoskins, he actually received a more in-depth review than he was entitled to.