Court Opinion

ID: 9735842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:32:25.295168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:01.901186
License: Public Domain

WOLLE, Justice
(dissenting).
I have no quarrel with much of the majority opinion, agreeing that defendant has standing and that counsel for criminal defendants should ordinarily have equal access to the criminal history data the county attorney obtains for jury selection purposes. I dissent, however, from division II.A. in which the majority narrowly restricts use of that data to “special cases” of individual prospective jurors. Contrary to the majority I read the controlling Iowa statutes to provide the trial court discretion to allow the county attorney to request, obtain, and then share with defense counsel criminal history data on all prospective jurors. This reading is faithful to the language of the statutes and assures counsel full access to relevant information needed for selection of a fair and impartial trial jury in criminal cases.
The statutory scheme is quite simple. A county attorney is a “criminal justice agency” authorized to obtain criminal history data under the conditions set forth in Iowa Code chapter 692. See Iowa Code § 692.-1(10) (1985). Iowa Code section 692.2(3)(a) provides in pertinent part that the county attorney may receive and use the data on persons listed by name when the “[t]he data is for official purposes in connection with prescribed duties.... ” Finally, Iowa Code section 331.756 lists in eighty-five separately numbered paragraphs the duties of the county attorney, but the first of those paragraphs states:
The county attorney shall:
1. Diligently enforce or cause to be enforced in the county, state laws and county ordinances, violations of which may be commenced or prosecuted in the name of the state, county, or as county attorney, except as otherwise provided.
These statutes, taken together, provide a solid basis for the district court’s conclusion in this case that “obtaining and utilization of said information falls within the duties imposed upon the county attorney.”
We should give the express term “prosecuted” in section 331.756(1) its ordinary meaning. See Good v. Iowa Civil Rights Comm’n, 368 N.W.2d 151, 155 (Iowa 1985); Iowa Code § 4.1(2). “Prosecute” is a general term meaning “to proceed against a person criminally.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1099 (5th ed. 1979). To prosecute violations of laws is to perform a variety of unnamed functions. The statutory description of the duties of a county attorney in Iowa Code section 331.756(1) “vests in the county attorney a broad discretion as to the manner in and the means by which the laws of the state shall be enforced.” 1940 Op. Iowa Att’y Gen. 5. Certainly the selection of a jury “composed of persons qualified and competent to judge and determine the facts in issue without bias, prejudice or partiality,” Elkin v. Johnson, 260 Iowa 46, 49-50, 148 N.W.2d 442, 444 (1967), is one of those functions embraced within the statutory directive that the county attorney “en*140force” laws, violations of which may be “prosecuted.” While the investigation of jurors’ criminal backgrounds is not itself a duty explicitly prescribed by statute, that task certainly is an activity a county attorney is expected to perform in carrying out the prosecutorial duties of the office.
I agree with defendant that the legislature in drafting Iowa Code chapter 692 took care to preserve the confidential nature of criminal history data. In sections 692.2 and 692.3 concerning dissemination and redissemination, however, the legislature exercised its prerogative to carve out exceptions to that general policy of confidentiality. To me it is clear the section 692.2 exception permits the county attorney to obtain and use criminal history data pertaining to the list of persons who may become trial jurors in a given criminal case. Likewise the section 692.3 exception permits the court to require redissemination of the same data to defense counsel.
No statutory language supports the majority’s interpretation that narrowly limits the use of rap sheets during jury selection to special cases involving individual jurors. No such special-case rule is prescribed by statute, described by rule, or provided for in any other authority. If use of any data turns on the extent to which a county attorney’s duty is explicitly prescribed, the majority’s special-case use would itself be proscribed because it certainly is not mentioned in our statutes.
Moreover, the special-case interpretation will probably serve no practical purpose. To satisfy the test set forth in the majority opinion, the county attorney would have to show “a reasonable basis for believing that the rap sheet may contain information that is pertinent to the individual’s selection as a juror and that is unlikely to be disclosed through voir dire or through juror questionnaires.” Perhaps the county attorney would be able to make such a showing in a county with a small population where the county attorney or other law enforcement officers would likely be familiar with most prospective jurors and know whether one or another has not been fully candid in answering the questionnaire or responding during voir dire examination. That familiarity itself might well make use of rap sheets in those counties entirely unnecessary. It is in the counties with larger populations, however, that the criminal history data would be most valuable to the county attorney because law enforcement officers would have little familiarity with prospective jurors. But how, under those circumstances, would the county attorney be able to make the necessary special-case showing? Ironically, the majority opinion seems to deprive counsel of valuable rap sheet information in those very circumstances where it would be most useful.
I would affirm, believing the district court correctly denied defendant’s motion to strike the jury pool and properly refused to prohibit the State from using criminal history data in jury selection. I would not reach defendant’s constitutional arguments, because I agree with the majority that defendant is entitled to have equal access to the criminal history data the county attorney obtains for use in jury selection.
HARRIS and LARSON, JJ., join this dissent.