Opinion ID: 1711241
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tolbert's Statement

Text: Key argues that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred when it affirmed the trial court's denial of his motion for an in camera inspection of Joy Tolbert's statement to the police investigator, Bill Dickinson. Tolbert testified on cross-examination that Dickinson had tape-recorded her statement and that she had seen a copy of the transcript of her tape-recorded statement. Key moved the trial court to allow him to inspect the statement, or, in the alternative, asked the trial court to conduct an in camera inspection of the statement. The State argued that Key had failed to lay a proper predicate for the inspection; the trial court then denied Key's motion. The State had no duty to disclose Tolbert's statement to Key before trial because an inculpatory statement made by a prosecution witness is not discoverable under Rule 16, Ala. R.Crim. P. See Acklin v. State, 790 So.2d 975, 1001 (Ala.Crim.App.2000)(`We know of no case requiring the prosecution to provide a criminal defendant with inculpatory substantive testimony of its witnesses.' (quoting Gowens v. State, 639 So.2d 524, 526 (Ala.Crim.App.1993))). Once a prosecution witness has testified on direct examination, however, a defendant, upon laying a proper predicate, is entitled to inspect a prior statement of the witness for the purpose of cross-examining or impeaching the witness. Ex parte Pate, 415 So.2d 1140, 1143-44 (Ala.1981). The Court of Criminal Appeals found in this case that Key failed to lay a proper predicate to review Tolbert's statement because there was no evidence indicating that Tolbert had signed or otherwise authenticated her statement to the investigator; there was no evidence indicating that her statement differed from her trial testimony; and there was no evidence indicating that the failure to require the State to produce the statement caused Key's trial to be fundamentally unfair. Key v. State, 890 So.2d at 1051. We reverse the Court of Criminal Appeals' judgment insofar as it affirmed the trial court's denial of Key's motion because the Court of Criminal Appeals misapplied the rule adopted in Pate. In Pate we held that while the production for inspection of any statement would lie within the sound discretion of the trial judge, upon laying a proper predicate a defendant is entitled to, at least, an in camera inspection of the statement. 415 So.2d at 1144. A defendant lays a proper predicate for an in camera inspection of a witness's statement when the defendant provides evidence that the witness made a statement and that the witness has signed the statement or that the statement can otherwise be authenticated. Pate, 415 So.2d at 1142. Upon an in camera inspection the trial court could determine: (1) whether the witness's statement differed in any respect from the witness's testimony at trial, and (2) whether the statement requested was of such a nature that without it the defendant's trial would be fundamentally unfair. Pate, 415 So.2d at 1144. In this case, Key laid the proper predicate for an in camera inspection of Tolbert's statement when he elicited testimony from Tolbert that her statement to the police investigator, Bill Dickenson, had been tape-recorded and that she had seen a copy of the transcript of that tape-recorded statement. Tolbert provided evidence of a statement and provided sufficient verification of the existence of a verbatim statement to justify an in camera inspection of the statement. In Pate, this Court adopted for the production of out-of-court statements by a prosecution witness the test described by the Supreme Court of the United States in Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959). The Supreme Court explained its Palermo holding in Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 106, 81 S.Ct. 421, 5 L.Ed.2d 428 (1961): In Palermo, we approved of the district judge's holding proceedings in camera to determine whether questionable documents constituted statutory `statements.' It needed no explicitness to establish that the `substantially verbatim' test was to be made by extrinsic proof, not by asking the witness himself whether the document in question substantially conformed to what he had told the federal agents. (Citations omitted.) A federal court applying Palermo has found: Even if not an exact recording, the notes would be considered a substantially verbatim recital of the witness's statement if they `could be fairly deemed to reflect fully and without distortion what had been said to the government agent' and thus be used to impeach the witness's testimony at trial. United States v. Scotti, 47 F.3d 1237, 1249 (2d Cir.1995). The threshold for verification sufficient to require an in camera inspection is quite low. When it is doubtful whether the notes are subject to discovery, the government should submit them to the trial court for an in camera determination; the court may in its discretion consider extrinsic evidence in deciding whether the notes qualify as a witness statement. Scotti, 47 F.3d at 1249. We remand this case for the Court of Criminal Appeals to remand the case for the trial court to determine whether Key should have been allowed to inspect Tolbert's statement. If the trial court finds that Key should have been allowed to inspect the statement, the trial court shall order a new trial on the offense of leaving the scene of an accident. [6]