Court Opinion

ID: 9757507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:43:59.125569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.207452
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I join the majority but wish to voice my disapproval of the then assistant district attorney’s failure to inform either the trial court or appellant that the victim’s father was on the jury panel. Both the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility and the ABA Project on Standards for the Prosecution Function command that “the prosecution should make timely disclosure to the defense of available evidence, known to him, that tends to negate the guilt of the accused; mitigate the degree of the offense, or reduce the punishment.”1 If the prosecution has the professional responsibility of informing a defendant of “available evidence . . . negating] . . . guilt”, so to is it the prosecution’s duty to disclose the information here involved. Certainly the assistant district attorney had an obligation to inform the trial court of the presence of the victim’s father on the jury panel.
The practical effect of the assistant district attorney’s failure to comply with the professional standards *59required of Ms quasi-judicial office2 is to unnecessarily burden the judicial process and the efficient administration of criminal justice with yet another trial of appellant. Had the assistant district attorney met the professional standards required of his office the additional delay, expense and waste of judicial and professional resources now necessary would have been avoided.
Mr. Justice Nix and Mr. Justice Manderino join in this opinion.

 ABA Code of Professional Responsibility and Canons of Judicial Ethics, Canon 7, EC 7-13; ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function and the Defense Function, The Prosecution Function, §3.11 (a) (Approved Draft 1971).

 The ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Standings Relating to the Prosecution Function and the Defense Function, The Prosecution Function §1.1 (c) (Approved Draft 1971), specifically provides that “[t]he duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely convict.”