Opinion ID: 2337161
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the subpoenas duces tecum

Text: This Court will not address a constitutional question if the case can be fully determined without reaching it. State ex rel. Union Elec. Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 687 S.W.2d 162, 165 (Mo. banc 1985). This Court's appellate jurisdiction is not lost if the case is decided on other issues. Id. Accordingly, the Court does not reach the question of whether sec. 210.140, which the appellant claims abrogates the minister-communicant privilege in situations involving child abuse or neglect, violates the respondents' right to free exercise of religion. Instead, the order is affirmed because these subpoenas were not authorized by sec. 56.085. Section 56.085 grants the prosecuting attorney in the course of a criminal investigation the power to request: the circuit judge to issue a subpoena to any witness who may have information for the purpose of oral examination under oath to require the production of books, papers, records, or other material of any evidentiary nature at the office of the prosecuting or circuit attorney requesting the subpoena. (emphasis added). [3] The subpoenas at issue order Mr. Bloom and Mr. Graham to appear/produce documents. Specifically, the subpoenas request any and all relevant materials, including personal knowledge, regarding State v. Eisenhower [sic]. Section 56.085 does not by its terms specifically authorize a general investigative subpoena of personal knowledge. And certainly, books, papers, and records do not include unrecorded personal knowledge. The remaining question is whether other material of any evidentiary nature includes the unrecorded recollection of a witness. Absent a statutory definition, the words used in the statute will be given their plain and ordinary meaning as derived from the dictionary. State v. Hibler, 5 S.W.3d 147, 149 (Mo. banc 1999). In context, the word material means something physical rather than abstract or intangible in nature. Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1392 (1981). The Court concludes, therefore, that an unrecorded memory or knowledge of events is not books, papers, records, or other material. The state's subpoena ordering Mr. Bloom and Mr. Graham to bring personal knowledge is outside the scope of what is subject to an investigative subpoena duces tecum under sec. 56.085. Nothing indicates that the state has any interest in obtaining physical evidence. The trial court did not err in quashing the subpoenas. The order is affirmed. PRICE, C.J., LIMBAUGH, WHITE, WOLFF and BENTON, JJ., concur. LAURA DENVIR STITH, J., not participating.