Opinion ID: 1427690
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: request for summary of expected expert witness testimony

Text: This pervasive problem of expert witnesses in criminal litigation is summarized after an extended analysis in Myers, Bays, Becker, Berliner, Corwin, & Saywitz, Expert Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Litigation, 68 Neb.L.Rev. 1, 145 (1989): Expert testimony plays an important role in child sexual abuse litigation. Such testimony can assist the jury in many ways. Yet, the issues raised by expert testimony are exceedingly complex, and clinical and scientific understanding of child sexual abuse is still developing. Courts should proceed cautiously when considering the admissibility of expert testimony on child sexual abuse. It is vitally important that professionals offering such testimony be highly qualified. Courts should insist on a thorough showing of expertise before permitting individuals to testify as experts. Furthermore, courts should require the proponent of expert testimony to lay a complete foundation so that the court understands precisely how the evidence is relevant. When appropriate caution is exercised, qualified experts can assist in attaining justice. I do not accept the attitude that what should be is however yet untimely to be in procedural equivalency as a search for justice. The issue of this case is not whether Dr. Gale received a fair trial. No average unbiased examiner, whether learned in the law or not, would likely examine the record and find a fair result presented. The issue is whether an unconstitutionally unfair relationship for defense was created by the trial court's uniform rejection of Dr. Gale's discovery motions. Differing from the majority, I would extend the obvious unfairness to reach a degree of prohibited unconstitutional unfairness. Denial of a summary of expected state expert witness testimony was one of the significant steps toward unfairness in contradistinction to even-handed justice. [15] First I reject the subsurface premise that justice and procedural fairness should only be available to civil litigation and the prosecutor in criminal cases. See Comment, supra, 66 Den. U.L.Rev. 123. The entire thesis of the federal rules and modernized procedures which include motion practice, pretrial and discovery was to provide equal opportunity for equivalency in knowledge before trial and a consequent rational presentation of the facts at trial. Trial by ambush and accident was to be eliminated. Reference to W.R.C.P. 1 may be urgently required. W.R.C.P. 1 states: These rules govern procedure in all courts of record in the State of Wyoming, in all actions, suits or proceedings of a civil nature, in all special statutory proceedings except as provided in Rule 81, and in all appeals in criminal cases. In all cases in which statutes of civil procedure are made applicable by statute to the trial of criminal cases and are not superseded by the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure, these rules shall govern insofar as they supersede or are in conflict with such statutes. They shall be construed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action. (Emphasis added.) (Originally adopted by the Wyoming Supreme Court effective December 1, 1957 or thirty-two years ago.) Despite that noble purpose, or perhaps for criminal trials only to be a platitude, I find it terribly obnoxious that three decades and millions of nationally adjudicated cases later, we argue about what is obviously fair in exchange for summary of expected expert witness testimony. It was out of a quest for fairness to the prosecution that the alibi rules, W.R.Cr.P. 16.1 and 16.2, and reciprocal discovery provisions, W.R.Cr.P. 18(d), were created. The decision made here cannot be defined in justification of exercised discretion unless it is said that criminal defendants should be denied rights guaranteed to civil litigants. Smith v. Ford Motor Co., 626 F.2d 784 (10th Cir.1980), cert. denied 450 U.S. 918, 101 S.Ct. 1363, 67 L.Ed.2d 344 (1981). Uniform Rules for the District Courts 601, pretrial practice, in part provides: (a) In all cases in which a pretrial conference is ordered reasonable notice of the time and place shall be given.       (c) Before pretrial counsel shall:       (4) Furnish opposing counsel names and addresses of witnesses with a summary of their expected testimony[.] In recognizing the right to have access to the names of witnesses, this court, in Jackson v. State, 522 P.2d 1286, 1289 (Wyo. 1974), said: Counsel is not required to develop a defense for the first time upon trial, and any attorney who attempted to do so at that late stage would justifiably have his competency questioned and be open to criticism at the least. The interviewing of prospective witnesses, or any party who may have some knowledge of the subject event, is such a basic procedure in the proper preparation of either a civil or criminal case that it is axiomatic. Discretion properly exercised involves choice within arguably appropriate alternatives. In exercise, it is not an opportunity to deny fundamental equivalency and fairness for each litigant. Martin, 720 P.2d 894. There could be reasons for discretional denial of expected expert witness testimony summaries in criminal cases which should be no less nor no more than civil cases and not just because it is a criminal case. Neither litigant nor present majority cites authority or provides cogent reasoning why, as an attitude on adaptation of what is required for justice in civil litigation, it need not be provided  as a matter of course  in criminal cases. Casual readers of state appellate court reports cannot have any perspective to the degree that experts have invaded criminal prosecutions and particularly so, like this case, where sexual offenses are charged. [16] To address the subject forcibly then within the rights granted by the 1957 rules of civil procedure, were rights to expert witness summary extricated or extinguished by the 1968 rules of criminal procedure? We have W.R.Cr.P. 18, [17] conjecturally W.R. Cr.P. 19 [18] and empirically W.R.Cr.P. 16.1 [19] and 16.2 [20] which are specific prosecutorial discovery rules as well as W.R.Cr.P. 17 [21] which appears even-handedly to apply. Unfortunately in grandiose characterization in past opinions, it is said that no general constitutional right to discovery is guaranteed. But this court has never related W.R.C.P. 1 to the criminal rules to analyze due process, equal protection and proper discretion denial of rights to the criminal defendant that effectively or casually are available to the prosecutor and civil litigant. Due process cannot be properly shunted aside by ignoring the modern thesis of fact finding in modernized processes. Brennan, supra, 1963 Wash. U.L.Q. 279. It is surely justified to argue in both rule requirement application and constitutional explication that the criminal defendant should have rights equal to the prosecutor and all rights of the civil litigant unless that equivalency is expressly denied by rule or statute and even then with questionable constitutional validity. How then does W.R.Cr.P. 18 deny, if it does, the right to expert witness summary which is assured by our civil rules? We are not informed by discussion in the briefs nor by citation in the majority. We are, however, directed to the proviso of subsection (b) which becomes (c) as the Jencks Act proviso. 18 U.S.C. § 3500; Jones v. State, 568 P.2d 837 (Wyo. 1977); Deluna v. State, 501 P.2d 1021 (Wyo. 1972). Specifically, counsel for the State does not argue and the majority does not conclude that W.R.Cr.P. 18(c) excludes, or the exclusion of W.R.Cr.P. 18(b) includes, summaries of expert witnesses within W.R.C.P. 26(b)(1) requirements. It is here that II ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 11-2.1 (2d ed. 1982) follows our legal heritage found in modern rules of procedure: (a) Upon the request of the defense, the prosecuting attorney shall disclose to defense counsel all of the material and information within the prosecutor's possession or control including but not limited to: (i) the names and addresses of witnesses, together with their relevant written or recorded statements; (ii) any written or recorded statements and the substance of any oral statements made by the accused or made by a codefendant; (iii) those portions of grand jury minutes containing testimony of the accused and relevant testimony of witnesses; (iv) any reports or statements made by experts in connection with the particular case, including results of physical or mental examinations and of scientific tests, experiments, or comparisons; (v) any books, papers, documents, photographs, tangible objects, buildings, or places which the prosecuting attorney intends to use in the hearing or trial or which were obtained from or belong to the accused; and (vi) any record of prior criminal convictions of the defendant or of any codefendant. (b) When the information is within the prosecutor's possession or control, the prosecuting attorney shall inform defense counsel: (i) if relevant recorded grand jury testimony has not been transcribed; (ii) if the defendant's conversations or premises have been subjected to electronic surveillance (including wiretapping); (iii) if the prosecutor intends to conduct scientific tests, experiments, or comparisons which may consume or destroy the subject of the test, or intends to dispose of relevant physical objects; and (iv) if the prosecutor intends to offer (as part of the proof that the defendant committed the offense charged) evidence of other offenses. (c) The prosecuting attorney shall disclose to defense counsel any material or information within the prosecutor's possession or control which tends to negate the guilt of the accused as to the offense charged or which would tend to reduce the punishment of the accused. (d) The prosecuting attorney's obligations under this standard extend to material and information in the possession or control of members of the prosecutor's staff and of any others who have participated in the investigation or evaluation of the case and who either regularly report or, with reference to the particular case, have reported to the prosecutor's office. We need not consider the fearsome calamities of witness intimidation and contamination considered in congressional action addressing mandatory general witness listing. But see 18 U.S.C. § 3432 (1976), which provides for mandatory disclosure of the prosecution witness list in capital cases at least three entire days before trial. The Supreme Court proposal to amend the federal rule to include disclosure of the names and addresses of witnesses was not adopted, apparently because Congress feared witness intimidation and contamination. Conference Committee, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Act of 1975, H.R.Rep. No. 94-414, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 11-12 (1975). Compare House Committee on the Judiciary, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Amendments Act, H.R.Rep. No. 94-247, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 12, 14 (1975), reprinted in [1975] U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 674, 686. II ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, supra, § 11-2.1 at 11.19 n. 17. We are only concerned in this analysis with expert witnesses and summaries of their anticipated forensic contribution to deliver justice to be no less fair in request by defendant as well as prosecution. Although release of witness statements may be denied until after testimony, W.R. Cr.P. 18(c), Jencks Act  18 U.S.C. § 3500  summaries of expected expert witness testimony should be available pretrial by application of present Wyoming rules and by recognition of the validity of the ABA standards unless extraordinary cause for denial in behalf of either prosecution or defense is provided in resistance to the disclosure motion. [22]