Court Opinion

ID: 9660401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:12:35.778613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:19.194608
License: Public Domain

ANN WALSH BRADLEY, J.
¶ 28. {concurring). I concur. I write separately because I believe that the majority unnecessarily and unwisely reaches out to answer a question in this complex case while leaving in limbo related questions of equal or greater importance. The result of the majority's approach is the piecemeal resolution of issues with far-reaching implications.
¶ 29. This case comes to us in an unusual posture. As a basis for appealing his conviction in the circuit court, Solberg alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. However, the ineffective assistance of counsel claim is not before us and was not even briefed. Rather, the State challenges the court of appeals' holding that the record did not contain sufficient evidence of E.H.'s consent to the court of appeals' review of her medical and psychological records. As it reaches this court, the case has blossomed into a myriad of factual, constitutional, statutory, and public policy issues. These issues center on the tension between a patient's statutory right to deny access to his or her medical and psycho*390logical records on the one hand, and a defendant's constitutional right to present a defense on the other.
¶ 30. The issues presented are important, complex, and interrelated. Defense counsel noted at oral argument "the issues we are here on today are extremely important. . .and this court will no doubt, whatever its decision, be having quite an effect in the future on the course of the law." The Assistant Attorney General stated that "this is probably the most difficult area of law quite honestly that I've ever confronted in my twenty-some years doing appellate work, because there are so many strands. ..." I agree and believe that this court would benefit greatly from the court of appeals' prior consideration of the issues presented in this important and unusually complex case.
¶ 31. Like the majority, I conclude that the court of appeals should have searched for, and would have found, the requisite consent by E.H. to an in camera review of her medical and psychological records. E.H.'s consent to the circuit court's in camera viewing of her records also constitutes consent for the same viewing in the appellate courts because a contrary rule would effectively preclude appellate review of circuit court rulings based on privileged records.
¶ 32. Unlike the majority, I would stop after resolving the threshold issue of consent. The majority offers no reason for reaching beyond the consent issue to deal with relevance while declining to deal with other significant issues. The result is this court's piecemeal consideration of interrelated issues that might be resolved as a whole by the court of appeals after full briefing. The majority's installment approach to this case runs the risk of unintentionally deciding one issue by addressing another related issue.
*391¶ 33. Having determined that E.H. consented to an in camera review of her records, I would remand to the court of appeals, not merely on the limited issues identified by the majority, but for a full consideration of Solberg's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, as well as any other outstanding issues. Among the questions that the court of appeals might consider after full briefing are the following:
• Is the Wis. Stat. § 905.04 privilege absolute?
• May a person waive the privilege as to a judge's in camera review of records, while still preserving the right to refuse release of the records to a defendant?
• If the privilege holder does not consent to the release of relevant information to the defendant, to what, if any, remedies is the defendant entitled?
• Does a privilege holder's consent to an in camera review of records extend to a court's conversations with the holder's doctor conducted after the period of time specified in the consent has passed?
• To what extent does release of privileged records to law enforcement agents constitute waiver of the privilege?
The court of appeals' answers to these questions would go a long way toward resolving the many troubling issues raised in cases like the present one.
¶ 34. Finally, the majority has compounded its improvident consideration of the circuit court's relevance ruling by conducting a superficial review of the issue. The majority's analysis of the relevance issue is limited to a one-sentence adoption of the circuit court's ruling on the matter:
*392Alter conducting our own in camera review, we are unable to conclude that the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion when it determined that the information contained in E.H.'s records, including the flashback information, would not have assisted Solberg in his defense.
Majority op. at 387. After reviewing the majority's relevance analysis, I am left wondering whether the treatment given by the majority to the circuit court's ruling is sufficient to dispose of the relevance issue. The issues presented in this case are significant, intricate, and intertwined, and deserve more than cursory treatment and a piecemeal approach.
¶ 35. For the foregoing reasons, I concur.
¶ 36. I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson joins this opinion.