Opinion ID: 854136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantially Verbatim Witness Statement

Text: Robinson argues the trial court erred in failing to order the State to turn over witness James Toby's statement that is set forth in a police report. In general, police reports constitute work product of the prosecutor, and a trial court is powerless to order production of such reports. Johnson v. State, 584 N.E.2d 1092, 1103 (Ind.1992). Substantially verbatim witness statements, however, are subject to discovery. Hicks v. State, 544 N.E.2d 500, 504 (Ind.1989). When a police report allegedly contains a verbatim witness statement interspersed with the officer's work product, in-camera inspection by the trial court should permit the court to determine whether a document is essentially a verbatim statement and therefore discoverable or essentially a police report containing occasional quotations and thus privileged. Crawford v. Superior Court of Lake County, 549 N.E.2d 374, 376 (Ind.1990). Upon a request by defense counsel that the police report be produced, the trial court reviewed the report and determined that it contained the investigating officer's impressions of what Mr. Toby said, not his substantially verbatim statement. (R. 278). The trial court therefore denied counsel's request that the prosecution be ordered to produce a copy. (R. 281). We agree that the report contains the officer's impressions rather than the witness' substantially verbatim statement. [1] The report does not purport to set forth Mr. Toby's actual words reduced to writing as he spoke, is not in the first person, and contains more than Mr. Toby's words. See Crawford, 549 N.E.2d at 376 (discoverable witness statements typically represent the witness' words as he spoke them, contain little but those words, and are written in the first person). Therefore, we find no error in the trial court's ruling.