Opinion ID: 2402732
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Inherent Power of the Trial Court.

Text: In discussing this question, it is not our duty or function to decide what the modern trend [3] of statutory or constitutional provisions with reference to the taking of pre-trial depositions in criminal cases is elsewhere, or what the law with reference thereto may be some day; our function, at this time, is to state our views as to what the law of Maryland is at present. It will be noted that Maryland Rules 727 and 728 both relate to Criminal Causes, with Rule 727 applying to Depositions and Rule 728 to Discovery and Inspection (more will be said of these Rules later). As they apply to criminal causes, discovery and depositions have different connotations. Discovery has long been one of the working tools of the legal profession. Equity bills of discovery were well known in English Chancery practice and they seem to have had a forerunner in Continental practice. Ragland, Discovery Before Trial, pp. 13-16. Discovery suggests the disclosure of facts resting in the knowledge of a party to a suit, or the production of deeds, writings or things in his possession or under his control. Black's Law Dictionary; Bouvier's Law Dictionary (Rawle's 3rd Rev.). Depositions, on the other hand, indicate the testimony of a witness reduced to writing, in due form of law, by virtue of a commission or other authority of a competent tribunal, or according to the provisions of some statute law, to be used on the trial of some question of fact in a court of justice. Bouvier, op. cit. (Of course, a much wider latitude is permitted in civil proceedings in the taking of depositions for the purposes of discovery or otherwise. Maryland Rules 400-425.) There was recently written of, and concerning, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, from which our Rules 727 and 728 stem, the following: Under the present rules a defendant is given very limited discovery rights. These rights are found in    Rule 16 (discovery and inspection) [the counterpart of Maryland Rule 728]   . The Criminal Rules, unlike the Civil Rules, have no procedures analogous to depositions, interrogatories or requests for admissions, which are available to the litigants for discovery purposes in a civil case. [This is likewise true of the Maryland Rules.] Rule 15 [the counterpart of Maryland Rule 727], which permits a deposition to be taken when a witness will not be available to testify at trial, is not a discovery device. Its purpose is perpetuation, not discovery, of evidence. Moran, Federal Criminal Rules Changes: Aid or Illusion for the Indigent Defendant?, A.B.A.J. (January, 1965). We have pointed out above, in some detail, the difference between discovery and depositions as they are used in Maryland Rules 727 and 728, for we shall soon see that Rule 728 (Discovery and Inspection) under subsection c provides that nothing in this Rule shall limit the inherent common law power of the [trial] court to require or permit discovery, but there is no similar provision in Rule 727 (Deposition). Consequently, it is seen that the inherent power referred to in Rule 728 to permit discovery (whatever that power may be) does not imply, or even intimate, an inherent power to direct the taking of depositions of the State's witnesses such as was done in this case. And we shall show below that no such inherent power has ever existed in the courts of Maryland, nor does it exist today. In Young v. State, 90 Md. 579 (1900), the defendant's request in a criminal case for a commission to take the testimony of a witness, who was unable to appear at his trial, was denied. In ruling upon whether this constituted error, this Court stated: In some of the States of the Union, there are statutes providing for commissions to take the testimony of absent witnesses in criminal cases. In Maryland there are provisions for taking the depositions of absent witnesses in civil cases. But these do not apply in criminal cases, and in such there is no statute or practice in any of the Courts permitting depositions taken by a commissioner to be read as evidence. There is in this State no inherent power to direct the taking of depositions to be used as evidence. Whatever power the Courts of law have, is conferred by statute, the provisions of which must be strictly followed. (Emphasis added.) Young was cited, with many other cases, in 1916A Ann. Cases 1066 for the proposition that: Depositions can be taken    in criminal cases only within the limitations of the authority granted by constitutional or statutory provisions or by the concurrent consent of the accused and the prosecution. [4] It was also followed by this Court in 1929 in the two cases of Summons v. State, 156 Md. at pages 382 and 390. In 1937 in Sugarman v. State, 173 Md. 52, the Court dealt with a motion to suppress, before trial, certain of the State's evidence. The Court held there was no statute or precedent that permitted (at that time) such a procedure, and stated the Court could see no reason for compelling the State's witnesses in advance of trial    to disclose to the prisoner the information which they possess pertaining to [the] case   . Sugarman was followed in State v. Mariana, 174 Md. 85. In 1947, this Court decided the case of State v. Haas, supra, 188 Md. 63. The Court there held that the trial court had discretionary power to require the State to furnish counsel for traversers, indicted and awaiting trial, copies of their written confessions which the State had obtained from them. The Court noted that such a power in the trial judge was not recognized at common law, and that the trial judge did not decide that the defendants were entitled as a matter of right to the copies. The Court carefully limited its holding to the facts before it, and concluded that an application for a copy of a confession of an indicted defendant should be left to the sound discretion of the trial court. The opinion did not discuss or consider anything relative to the taking of depositions. Maryland Rule 727 (Deposition) first became effective on January 1, 1950. It would serve no useful purpose to set forth this Rule and Rule 728 in toto, or to trace their history. It will suffice to say that Rule 727 is patterned after Federal Rule 15; Rule 728 after Federal Rule 16. Rule 727 provides, inter alia, if it appears that a prospective witness may be unable to attend or prevented from attending a trial, the court, in its discretion, may permit a deposition of the witness to be taken, which may be used at the trial if the witness is dead or under other named circumstances. Rule 728 provides for the discovery and inspection, in the sound discretion of the trial court, by the defendant of certain tangible objects, his obtaining the substance of any oral statement or confession made by him, copies of any written statements obtained from him, and the names and addresses of the State's witnesses intended to be called in chief. Subsection c of this Rule, as we stated above, states that nothing in this Rule shall limit the inherent common law power of the court to require or permit discovery. There is nothing in either of the rules that permits the taking, generally, of the depositions of the State's witnesses. When Rules 727 and 728 were last considered by the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure before recommending amendments thereto and their final adoption, there was a difference of opinion among the committee members relative to the final draft that should be recommended to the Court for adoption. Some thought that more liberal provisions should be made in Rule 727 for taking the depositions of witnesses; others thought that the Rule, in its present form, was sufficient. In any event, the Committee agreed upon their recommendations which were adopted (at least in the main part) by this Court. It was the considered opinion of the Court, at the time of the adoption of Rule 727, that depositions in criminal cases should only be taken in accordance with the provisions contained therein. After the adoption of Rule 728, we held in Whittle v. Munshower, 221 Md. 258, that allowing discovery and inspection thereunder is definitely an exception to the general rule, and even there, the matter is left to the sound discretion of the trial court, and inspection is not granted as a matter of right. See also Glaros v. State, 223 Md. 272. And, in Williams v. State, 226 Md. 614, we held that where a demand for a bill of particulars went far beyond what was required under Rule 728 and was calculated, not so much to amplify the allegations of the indictment, but to require complete disclosure by the State of the evidence it relied upon, the court was justified in sustaining the State's exceptions to the demand. From the above, it is seen that this Court, some sixty-five years ago, flatly stated that there is in this State no inherent power [in the trial courts] to direct the taking of depositions to be used as evidence [in criminal cases]. And since then, no decision of this Court has deviated therefrom. On the contrary, the holdings of the Court and the rules adopted by it clearly show that the State should not be required to make an indiscriminate disclosure of all its evidence intended to be used in a criminal prosecution. There is no provision in the Constitution or statutes of this State, or in the Maryland Rules that permits or requires the taking of pre-trial depositions of the State's witnesses. Hence, it is our view that the orders directing the taking of the depositions were improvidently issued. The trial court cites and quotes from the case of State v. Tune, 98 A.2d 881 (N.J., opinion by Vanderbilt, C.J.). That case can hardly be cited in support of the conduct complained of here. There, the Court sustained a part of the trial court's order which denied the defendant's request to inspect certain papers, and reversed that part of the order which permitted inspection of defendant's confession. In stating what we have above, we do not intimate that the State owns the witnesses whom it intends to produce at a criminal prosecution. The defendant and his counsel are at perfect liberty, as they always have been in this State, to interview and interrogate any prospective witness, subject, of course, to the witness' acquiescence in such interrogations. And the defendant and his counsel may take an affidavit from any prospective witness, if the witness be willing. But these matters are entirely different from forcing and requiring a witness to make a pre-trial deposition. We may add that we have found no State decision which has allowed the taking of pre-trial depositions in criminal prosecutions in the absence of specific authorization by statute or rule. Cf. State v. Mahoney, 176 A.2d 747 (Vt.), where the court permitted the taking of such depositions after the passage of a statute abrogating holding to the contrary in two earlier cases. Also compare 12 Stanford L. Rev. 293, 314.