Opinion ID: 2120717
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: prosecutor's obligation to disclose information

Text: ¶ 88. The second issue in applying Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1) is the extent of the prosecutor's duty to disclose materials and information if the materials and information are in the possession, custody or control of the state. The majority opinion concludes that the prosecutor breached her duty to disclose when she failed to turn over the DeLao interview as soon as Chaussee learned of it. This conclusion, and the interpretation of the statute that is required to reach it, should be rejected.
¶ 89. The majority opinion interprets the introductory sentence of Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1) as creating an absolute duty to disclose certain materials and information, if it is within the possession, custody or control of the state. An absolute duty to disclose disregards any circumstance in which the prosecutor and the prosecutor's agents do not realize that they have the materials or information, or do not realize the significance of the materials and information they have. [6] An absolute duty will lead occasionally and inevitably to unintentional breaches of the prosecutor's discovery obligation. ¶ 90. The law ought to take into account the reasonableness of a duty to disclose information just as it takes into account the reasonableness of a duty to find information. The statute must either create a reasonable duty to disclose on the front end or tolerate a reasonable breach of that duty on the back end. A prosecutor's unintentional breach of an absolute duty to disclose should not be treated the same as a prosecutor's deliberate withholding of requested information. ¶ 91. The prosecutor's duty to disclose can be made reasonable when the defendant designates the information sought and indicates in which it can be obtained. This is alluded to in Jones, where the court quotes commentary on the ABA Standards Relating to Discovery to explain why a defendant is sometimes required to designate information [w]here the existence of . . . information is known to the prosecutor but its quality as matter which he is obligated to disclose is not apparent to him. Jones, 69 Wis. 2d at 350 (quoting American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Discovery and Procedure Before Trial, sec. 2.4 at 83-84 (Approved Draft, 1970)). ¶ 92. The facts here show that an absolute duty to disclose information is not reasonable. DeLao's attorney drafted a discovery demand on June 16, 1999, and filed it with the district attorney on June 30, 1999. The discovery demand arrived two days after the Prioletta-DeLao interview. It asked the prosecutor to furnish a written summary of any oral, written or recorded statements of the defendant, but not limited to those statements which the state intends to use in the course of the trial. Although this discovery demand was broad enough to encompass the DeLao interview at the point when the substance of that interview was in the possession, custody or control of the state, it went well beyond the obligations of Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1)(a) and (b), did not designate the June 28 interview, and could not have contemplated that interview because it was drafted 12 days before the interview took place. [7] ¶ 93. Although it is not clear when the prosecutor answered DeLao's discovery demand, it is likely that the prosecutor answered the demand within a reasonable time before trial, as required by Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1). This would have been before Sunday, July 25, the date Chaussee first learned about the DeLao interview. Consequently, if the new information about the interview had to be disclosed, it would have had to be disclosed under subsection (7): If, subsequent to compliance with a requirement of this section, and prior to or during trial, a party discovers additional material or the names of additional witnesses requested which are subject to discovery, inspection or production under this section, the party shall promptly notify the other party of the existence of the additional material or names. Wis. Stat. § 971.23(7). ¶ 94. The prosecutor disclosed the interview information to the defense as soon as she learned about it. For his part, Chaussee advised the prosecutor about the information as soon as he could after he realized its relevance. [8] Chaussee said he realized its relevance at about 12:30 a.m. on July 28, 1999. He said his epiphany occurred at home, shortly after midnight, as he was thinking about the case. This was after he heard the defendant's opening statement and had a chance to ruminate about it. ¶ 95. The circuit court accepted Chaussee's version of events. The court understood that Chaussee did not have a written report of the DeLao interview until the noon hour on July 28. Prioletta had to be asked to write up that report during the trial. The court also recognized that Prioletta never talked to DeLao about the events of June 7. Prioletta discussed conversations that DeLao overheard before June 7. In the interview, DeLao never told Prioletta that she was afraid of Desmond Stalsberg. [9] Rather, she discussed her relationship with Stalsberg and his friends. Thus, it was largely DeLao's description of her relationship with Stalsberg and her silence about her alleged fear of him that were used to rebut her defense. ¶ 96. As a result, the significance of the DeLao interview for trial was not immediately apparent to Chaussee. [10] Information from the interview was not relevant in proving the charges against DeLao. It was helpful only in rebutting DeLao's defense which she did not make clear until trial. Moreover, Investigator Chaussee did not know before trial that DeLao would testify. ¶ 97. The prosecutor disclosed information about the DeLao interview as soon as its relevance was recognized. The majority holds that this was not good enough. It quotes Martinez, 166 Wis. 2d at 260, to the effect that, an investigative police agency which holds relevant evidence [is] an arm of the prosecution. Majority op. at ¶ 23. Thus, the majority says, the prosecutor was charged with knowledge of information in the possession of the investigating police agency (Mount Pleasant), on and after July 25, and she violated the discovery statute by failing to disclose that information to the defense before trial. ¶ 98. This conclusion does not square with a reasonable dutywith the reasonable diligence expected from a prosecutor or an investigator working with a prosecutor. Imposing an absolute duty to disclose information will not withstand close scrutiny over time.
¶ 99. Even an interpretation of the statute requiring an absolute duty to disclose certain information within the possession, custody or control of the state does not settle the issue. For instance, where the prosecutor has made disclosure to the defendant, as here, the court may have to decide whether the disclosure was timely. ¶ 100. This case is governed by Wis. Stat. § 971.23(7), which provides that, upon discovery of additional materials, the prosecutor has a duty to promptly notify the other party of the existence of the additional material (emphasis added). ¶ 101. In this case, Chaussee was told about the DeLao interview on Sunday, July 25, 1999, and the prosecutor notified the defendant three days later, within minutes of learning about it herself. ¶ 102. The majority concludes that promptness required the prosecutor to make disclosure of Chaussee's new information before trial, probably on Monday, July 26, the only work day before trial. Because the circuit court determined that the state made timely disclosure, the majority must reach its opposite conclusion as a matter of law. In deciding this issue, the majority gives short shrift to the fact that Chaussee did not have any written report from Prioletta and did not immediately see how Prioletta's oral summary of the DeLao interview related to the trial. [11] It also ignores the circuit court's finding that the DeLao interview was not relevant to the charges in her case; the interview was relevant only to her impeachment. By insisting that the interview information had to be disclosed to the defendant before trial, the majority opinion treats the timing of the prosecutor's disclosure the same as if the prosecutor had made no disclosure at all.
¶ 103. A court must determine whether materials and information in the possession, custody or control of the state are subject to a duty to disclose under Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1), because not all information must be disclosed. To illustrate, paragraph (a) requires the prosecutor to disclose any written or recorded statement concerning the alleged crime made by the defendant. Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1)(a) (emphasis added). These words convey a relatively clear directive to the prosecutor. By its terms, paragraph (a) does not obligate the prosecutor to turn over a written or recorded statement made by the defendant that does not relate to the alleged crime. ¶ 104. By contrast, paragraph (b) requires the prosecutor to disclose a written summary of all oral statements of the defendant. Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1)(b) (emphasis added). If there were no additional language in the statute, paragraph (b) would seem to impose an unlimited duty upon the prosecutor to disclose the defendant's oral statements. There would be no limit of relevance. [12] Courts would be forced to ask such questions as: Does paragraph (b) require the prosecutor to disclose a defendant's oral statements about her victimization in an unrelated burglary or her involvement in an unrelated automobile accident? Does paragraph (b) require the prosecutor to disclose a defendant's oral statements to an undercover law enforcement officer if the statements are not intended for use at trial? If we were to give an affirmative answer to these questions, we would be requiring the release of the names of witnesses to the defendant's oral statements. Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1)(b). In the first example, disclosing the names of the witnesses would be absurd; in the second example, disclosing the name of the undercover officer might impair ongoing undercover investigations. [13] ¶ 105. We do not have to wrestle with these problems because there are additional words in the statute, namely, the phrase which the district attorney plans to use in the course of the trial. These words place a realistic limitation on the prosecutor's duty to disclose the defendant's oral statements. ¶ 106. Significantly, there are two clear tracks within subsection (1) of Wis. Stat. § 971.23. Paragraphs (a), (c), (f) and (h) and parts of paragraph (e) appear, at least superficially, to create an unconditional obligation upon the prosecutor to disclose certain materials and information if it is within the possession, custody or control of the state. [14] They make no reference to the prosecutor's intent. The unconditional obligation applies to: (1) any written or recorded statement concerning the alleged crime made by the defendant; (2) a copy of the defendant's criminal record; (3) any relevant written or recorded statement of a witness whom the district attorney intends to call at trial; (4) any reports or statements of experts made in connection with the case, or any written summary of the expert's findings or the subject of the expert's testimony; (5) the criminal record of any prosecution witness which is known to the district attorney; and (6) any exculpatory evidence. ¶ 107. Paragraphs (b), (bm), (d), (g) and parts of paragraph (e) of Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1) are different. They explicitly limit the prosecutor's obligation to turn over enumerated materials and information. In each of these paragraphs, the prosecutor's duty to disclose information is conditioned upon the prosecutor's intent to use the information as evidence. Paragraph (b) limits the disclosure of oral statements of the defendant to those statements which the district attorney plans to use in the course of the trial. Paragraph (bm) limits disclosure of wiretap evidence unless the district attorney intends to use the evidence at trial. [15] Paragraph (d) limits the required list of witnesses to witnesses whom the district attorney intends to call at the trial. Paragraph (e) limits disclosure of the results of physical or mental examinations, scientific tests, experiments or comparisons to those that the district attorney intends to offer in evidence at trial. Paragraph (g) limits the disclosure of physical evidence to evidence that the district attorney intends to offer in evidence at the trial. ¶ 108. The majority opinion overlooks the prosecutorial discretion built into the statute when it rejects the state's interpretation of the phrase plans to use. The majority writes: The State maintains that the phrase plans to use embodies a subjective component. According to the State, the prosecutor in DeLao's case could not have planned to use DeLao's statements before DeLao's trial began because a prosecutor cannot plan to use what the prosecutor does not actually know. DeLao asserts . . . that the phrase plans to use . . . embodies an objective standard. We agree with DeLao that the standard is necessarily objective. Majority op. at ¶ 25. In concluding that the phrase plans to use embodies an objective standard, the majority is simply rewriting the statute. [16] ¶ 109. In addition, the majority's opinion departs from precedent. In State v. Larsen, 141 Wis. 2d 412, 415 N.W.2d 535 (Ct. App. 1987), the court noted that the state had possessed for some time prior to trial a written statement from the defendant's cellmate recounting numerous statements [the defendant had] made about concocting an alibi defense to the charges against him. The state did not give the defendant a copy of the statement until a week before trial. Id. at 425. The majority opinion views the state's disclosure in Larsen as a timely pretrial disclosure, but it fails to fully acknowledge the Larsen court's analysis: The state did not give Larsen a copy of this statement until a week before trial. The district attorney explained that he did not intend to use the cellmate's statement until Larsen filed his notice of alibi. We conclude that sec. 971.23(1) Stats., did not require the district attorney to permit Larsen to inspect and copy or photograph the written statement of Larsen's cellmate which was in his possession or provide him with a written summary of Larsen's oral statements made to his cellmate prior to the time the district attorney concluded he would introduce Larsen's statements at the time of trial. There is no suggestion that the state always intended to use the cellmate's statement but, as a stratagem, waited until the last minute to notify Larsen of the existence of the statement and its intent to use it. Id. ¶ 110. The Larsen analysis cannot be dismissed by hair-splitting distinctions. A reasonable prosecutor, including a Racine County prosecutor, could have relied upon Larsen as validating a prosecutor's good faith subjective intent to use evidence as a prerequisite for the prosecutor's required disclosure of some information. The analysis in the majority opinion is directly contrary to the analysis in Larsen and in another case, State v. Moriarty, 107 Wis. 2d 622, 321 N.W.2d 324 (Ct. App. 1982). [17] ¶ 111. More important, the majority opinion completely fails to explain the parallel language of subsection (1): intends to use, intends to call, and intends to offer. It is wholly unclear how the phrase plans to use could embody an objective standard if the other intent phrases in the subsection still embody a subjective standard. There ought to be consistency within the context of a subsection. ¶ 112. The inevitable implication of the majority opinion is that all paragraphs in the subsection embody an objective standard. [18] This opens the door to the mandatory disclosure of materials under paragraphs (b), (bm), (d), (e), and (g) in circumstances in which the material is never used and was never intended to be used as evidence. ¶ 113. To my mind, paragraphs (b), (bm), (d), (e), and (g) of subsection (1) contemplate a prosecutor's subjective intent. This subjective intent must not be tainted by bad faith. Circuit courts have the power to address a prosecutor's bad faith or manifest incompetence by excluding evidence or devising other remedies to protect the defendant. Wis. Stat. § 971.23(7m). But when a prosecutor seeks to use information that has not been timely disclosed because the prosecutor clearly did not intend to use it, the prosecutor should be permitted to explain and try to justify the shift in position, especially if the shift is responsive to some action or strategy of the defendant. ¶ 114. Most important, the majority opinion is impractical. It insists that a prosecutor turn over not only what the prosecutor knows and plans to use but also what a reasonable prosecutor should have known and would have planned to use if the reasonable prosecutor had known it existed. And it demands that these disclosures be made before trial. This soars beyond previous decisions and is too utopian to make sense in a busy prosecutor's office. It is a blueprint for second-guessing and attacking a prosecutor's conduct.
¶ 115. A prosecutor may not have to disclose some information to the defendant even when the prosecutor intends to use it at trial. Wisconsin Stat. § 971.23(1)(d) requires the prosecutor to disclose [a] list of all witnesses and their addresses whom the district attorney intends to call at the trial. This list of witnesses is linked to paragraph (e), which requires the prosecutor to disclose [a]ny relevant written or recorded statements of a witness named on a list under par. (d). Wis. Stat. § 971.23(1)(e). ¶ 116. What is vital to remember is that paragraph (d) also provides: This paragraph does not apply to rebuttal witnesses or those called for impeachment only (emphasis added). The existence of this exception in paragraph (d) legitimizes the use of rebuttal witnesses who may surprise the defendant. [19] This was shown in Lunde v. State, 85 Wis. 2d 80, 270 N.W.2d 180 (1978). Lunde was charged with delivering a controlled substance to a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The agent was introduced to Lunde by James Anderson, an undercover informer. At trial, Lunde took the stand and denied the charges in their entirety. He denied that he had ever seen the DEA agent, denied knowing Anderson, and denied knowing anything about the angel dust he had sold to the agent. The court described the situation: Over objection, James Anderson, the informer, was called as a rebuttal witness. Defense counsel's objection was based on the fact that the state had previously notified the defense that it would call three witnesses but had not mentioned Anderson as a possible witness. The prosecutor stated that he had not intended to call Anderson, he did not know where Anderson was until after the trial commenced, and it was only after the defendant elected to take the stand and denied knowing Anderson that the decision was reached to call Anderson in rebuttal. Id. at 84-85 (emphasis added). [20] The court concluded that the state had no duty to provide the names of bona fide rebuttal witnesses regardless of any demand of the defendant. Id. at 91 (citing Hough v. State, 70 Wis. 2d 807, 816, 235 N.W.2d 534 (1975), and Caccitolo v. State, 69 Wis. 2d 102, 115, 230 N.W.2d 139 (1975)). The court noted that Anderson's testimony was only necessary and appropriate when the defendant took the stand and denied that he knew Anderson and attempted to create a doubt as to his own whereabouts. Id. at 92. ¶ 117. The rebuttal/impeachment exception has implications for this case. Prioletta was not listed as a prosecution witness. The district attorney did not intend to call him at trial. Consequently, his statement, even if it had been written or recorded, which it was not, need not have been disclosed under paragraph (e). It would have had to be disclosed only if disclosure were required under some other paragraph. ¶ 118. The majority's opinion has an unexpected and unfortunate consequence with regard to witnesses called in rebuttal. Rebuttal witnesses serve the purpose of keeping a person's testimony honest. This includes the defendant in a criminal case who takes the witness stand voluntarily. Under the majority opinion, however, some rebuttal or impeachment evidence against a defendant will be suppressed; and, in that situation, the defendant may be able to testify without fear of contradiction and with virtual immunity from prosecution for perjury. See State v. Canon, 2001 WI 11, 241 Wis. 2d 164, 622 N.W.2d 270. [21]