Court Opinion

ID: 9785068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:02:04.233301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:04.611276
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Senior Judge,
with whom FISHER, Associate Judge, joins, concurring:
As noted by Judge Ruiz, post, p. 74, she and I are in full agreement with respect to the proper disposition of this appeal and the legal issues presented to us by the parties. Both Judge Fisher and I, however, disagree with her concurring statement, in which she states her views as to what should occur in thé trial court following remand. Those views are, of course, her own, and they do not represent the position of the court.
Judge Ruiz proposes that, on remand, the judge should consider conducting an inquiry to determine whether the prosecutor has violated certain Rules of Professional Conduct. Until now, no party has raised such a question, and Miller’s very able and resourceful attorneys have carefully avoided any suggestion that the prosecutor committed an ethical violation. The legal, issue as to the point at which exculpatory information must be disclosed to the defense, in circumstances such as those before us, is a difficult one, as to which reasonable judges and lawyers can and do disagree, conscientiously and in good faith. We do not believe that the vigorous assertion of counsel’s position as to when disclosure was mandated should be viewed as potentially implicating counsel’s professional ethics. In any event, we think that it would be unfair for the prosecutor’s first inkling of this proposal (ie., that his compliance with ethical standards may merit investigation, as Judge Ruiz suggests) to come in the form of a published appellate opinion.