Opinion ID: 1360772
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: there was a discovery violation

Text: In the course of determining whether the trial court abused its discretion in imposing a sanction for a discovery violation, we must first determine whether a discovery violation occurred. The public defender sets forth numerous arguments claiming that no discovery violation took place. First, Wood argues that he was never sure he would call Dr. Hamilton as a witness, and therefore the Woodcock-Johnson test was not evidence prepared by a witness whom the defendant intended to call at trial and he had no duty to disclose this information under I.C.R. 16(c)(2). [2] We do not find this argument persuasive because Dr. Hamilton was disclosed as a witness on Wood's witness list. The prosecution had submitted its request for discovery, and it included a request for any reports or tests prepared by a witness the defendant intended to call at trial. If we were to read the rule as Wood suggests, no reports or tests would be discoverable until after a witness is actually called. The control of the timing of discovery would be entirely at the discretion of counsel. Our rules contemplate that counsel must make a good faith determination of the witnesses to be called and do so at a time when meaningful discovery can be conducted. Wood's proposed interpretation would render I.C.R. 16(c)(2) meaningless and we decline to do so. Wood further argues that the language portion of the Woodcock-Johnson test did not relate to the testimony of Dr. Hamilton, and that Dr. Hamilton only relied on the mathematical portion of the test which was turned over to the prosecution in a timely fashion. Wood refers us to the testimony of Dr. Hamilton and argues that it supports his claim that Dr. Hamilton did not rely on the undisclosed testing. However, the portion of testimony that Wood refers us to does not support his argument. At trial, Wood asked Dr. Hamilton: [d]id you utilize the first round of MMPI and Milan tests and the second round of MMPI and Milan tests to form your opinions that you have expressed in this courtroom? To that Dr. Hamilton replied: [t]he opinions that I have expressed so far are based on the first MMPI and Milan. Although this could be interpreted to mean these were the only tests upon which he based his entire testimony, we find in reading the whole transcript that it is clear that Dr. Hamilton did not base his entire testimony on these two tests, and in fact was only distinguishing between the use of the first set of MMPI and Milan tests and the subsequently administered tests. As further support for this argument, Wood attempts to separate the Woodcock-Johnson test into two separate tests, and asserts that the language test was not relied upon by Dr. Hamilton. The prosecution's discovery request was made for all scientific tests given and interpreted. Although Wood is now contending that the language and mathematical portions are actually two separate tests, he failed to make this objection at trial. Indeed, at trial the only argument made by Wood was that the failure to turn over the language section was inadvertent, and that Dr. Hamilton must be allowed to testify regarding the Woodcock-Johnson test otherwise we will not be able to give a full picture of the defendant's mental state. During this discussion Wood never asserted that the language portion of the test was not discoverable, rather he argued that the failure to comply with the discovery request was not intentional. Having failed to present the issue at trial, we decline to address it on appeal. Dunn v. Baugh, 95 Idaho 236, 238, 506 P.2d 463, 465 (1973) (citing Williams v. Havens, 92 Idaho 439, 444 P.2d 132 (1968); Frasier v. Carter, 92 Idaho 79, 437 P.2d 32 (1968); Swaringen v. Swanstrom, 67 Idaho 245, 175 P.2d 692 (1946)). Next, Wood claims that the test was a statement of the defendant which was privileged until Dr. Hamilton took the stand. While Wood may have made this Fifth Amendment argument earlier, the record only indicates that he made it for the first time when the trial judge sanctioned him. The record also does not reflect that Wood ever objected to the discovery request or moved for a protective order. Even during trial, Wood interposed no objection to the use of Stradley's test results, and in fact utilized those results in his defense. Thus any objection to the disclosure of that test result made at the sanction hearing, clearly was not timely and it was not error for the district judge to disregard that argument in determining the propriety of sanctions. Wood also argues that the discovery rules impose a duty to mitigate on each party, and that the prosecution failed to mitigate when it did not continue to ask Wood for the undisclosed portion of the test. We do not agree. I.C.R. 16(j) expressly imposes a duty on each party to turn over requested discovery items, and provides for the imposition of sanctions upon the failure to comply with this duty. It is clear by reading the rule that the duty was placed on Wood to disclose the information after the discovery request and subsequent order by the trial judge, and there was no duty to mitigate by the prosecution. Finally, Wood makes an argument involving the interpretive report which the prosecution discovered was not disclosed with the balance of the materials on Wednesday night. He argues this report was not actually a report until the prosecution requested it, as it was in Dr. Hamilton's computer and had never been generated as a report. We find this particular argument irrelevant with respect to this appeal. The transcript of the sanction hearing, along with the affidavit of Wood's attorney which was submitted with the motion for stay of the sanction, demonstrates that the trial judge only sanctioned Wood for failure to turn over the Woodcock-Johnson test. Therefore, any arguments involving the other discovery violations have no bearing on this appeal. We conclude that there was indeed a violation of the Idaho Criminal Rules relating to discovery. A discovery request was made and further, the trial court advised Wood prior to trial that he was to comply with the request. There is no additional burden upon the state to contact defense counsel to find out why the discovery has not been forthcoming. Moreover, if the appellant intended to object to the scope of discovery, or to the particular items requested, it was incumbent upon him to either object to the discovery request or file a request for a protective order.