Opinion ID: 1836491
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutionality of the potential sanction

Text: ¶ 40 A conclusion that the circuit court has authority to issue such an order necessarily brings us to the question of the authority to enforce such an order. ¶ 41 McClaren says that excluding evidence as a sanction for violating the court's order is impermissible because it would violate his constitutional right to present witnesses, and thus to present a defense, under the Sixth Amendment's compulsory process clause. [13] ¶ 42 The State contends that such a sanction may be permitted depending on the facts and that Taylor controls the sanction for any violations. Taylor upheld an Illinois court's refusal to allow testimony from a defense witness whose name was not disclosed prior to trial. The Court rejected the defendant's assertion that excluding evidence was never a permissible sanction and established a framework for analyzing violations. Taylor, 484 U.S. at 412-13, 108 S.Ct. 646. ¶ 43 We agree with the State. The United States Supreme Court has established a test for excluding evidence and has said that under certain circumstances, exclusion of evidence does not violate a defendant's constitutional rights. There are sanctions short of excluding evidence, of course. The Court cited a case, for example, that [gave] consideration to the effectiveness of less severe sanctions, the impact of preclusion on the evidence at trial and the outcome of the case, the extent of prosecutorial surprise or prejudice, and whether the violation was willful. Taylor, 484 U.S. at 415 n. 19, 108 S.Ct. 646 (citing Fendler v. Goldsmith, 728 F.2d 1181 (9th Cir.1983)). However, as Taylor makes clear, even the sanction of excluding evidence against a defendant is constitutionally permissible in certain cases, such as where there have been willful violations motivated by a desire to obtain a tactical advantage. Taylor, 484 U.S. at 415, 108 S.Ct. 646. ¶ 44 As we noted above, Taylor states well the balancing of interests that goes into a court's oversight of a trial: It is elementary, of course, that a trial court may not ignore the fundamental character of the defendant's right to offer the testimony of witnesses in his favor. But the mere invocation of that right cannot automatically and invariably outweigh countervailing public interests. The integrity of the adversary process, which depends both on the presentation of reliable evidence and the rejection of unreliable evidence, the interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice, and the potential prejudice to the truth-determining function of the trial process must also weigh in the balance. Id. at 414-15, 108 S.Ct. 646 (emphasis added). ¶ 45 Whether a violation merits the extreme sanction of exclusion must be determined by a circuit court after a violation has occurred, and under the parameters set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Taylor. ¶ 46 Here the circuit court noted in its oral ruling that, As always, if new evidence is discovered at the last minute that may be the basis for an exception to the notice requirement. The circuit court should have been more clear that the Taylor analysis would be applied and that exclusion was one of the sanctions available to the circuit court for a violation of its order; it was premature for the circuit court, in its oral ruling, to predict that the sanction for failure to abide by the order would necessarily be the exclusion of evidence.