Court Opinion

ID: 9588121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:30:23.927833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:51.310562
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur with the result and with much of the reasoning contained in the opinion. I write because I disagree with the court’s conclusion that the use of dual juries was equivalent to the adoption of a local rule without sanction of this court.
This record contains no hint that the Superior Court of Pima County has adopted a general procedure to be applied in cases with “Bruton problems” or in similar cases where the objective of efficient and prompt administration of justice conflicts with the necessity of providing defendants with a fair trial. The record does indicate that the trial judge correctly concluded that defendant’s right to a fair trial required a severance. However, he was informed that if the two cases were severed, each trial would consume approximately three weeks and that the prosecution intended to call several out-of-state witnesses. Thus, successive trials would have resulted in a disproportionate expenditure of court, witness and jury time, with the attendant expense and inconvenience.
*78To handle this problem, the judge decided to sever the cases but to hold both trials at once, with two separate juries in the same courtroom. As the majority correctly indicates, careful precautions were taken and neither defendant was prejudiced in any manner. I see no reason to chastise the trial judge for using the procedure, nor any ground to conclude that he made some special rule of local procedure without sanction of the supreme court. More importantly, I see no reason to inhibit other trial judges from using innovative techniques when required in a particular case in order to meet the ever-growing problems of the system.
Rule 36, Rules of Criminal Procedure, 17 A.R.S. (1973), should be interpreted to require advance consent by this court only for the adoption of "rules of court” which set standards of procedure to be aplied to all cases or to all cases of certain classes. “A rule of court prescribes a procedural course of conduct that litigants are required to follow, the failure to comply with which may deprive the parties of substantial rights.” Hare v. Superior Court, 133 Ariz. 540, 542, 652 P.2d 1387, 1389 (1982). What we have here is not a rule of procedure for litigants; it is an order — the exercise of an individual judge’s discretion to use a particular technique in order to meet a specific problem. In my view, where the trial judge innovates in accommodating the requirements of a particular case, we are dealing with a discretionary function rather than with “rule making.” Trial judges have inherent power and discretion to adopt special, individualized procedures designed to promote the ends of justice in each case that comes before them. Schavey v. Roylston, 8 Ariz.App. 574, 575, 448 P.2d 418, 419 (1968) (Judge had inherent power to exclude spectators even though the rule permitting this had been repealed.), 20 Am. Jur.2d, Courts §§ 79 and 81. Such discretion — and thus the procedure adopted in the case at bench — is expressly recognized by Rule 611, Rules of Evidence, 17A A.R.S., which permits the trial court to “exercise reasonable control over the mode [of] ... presenting evidence so as to ... avoid needless consumption of time .... ”
The court of appeals recently considered a procedure followed by a judge who allows jurors to submit questions for witnesses. State v. LeMaster, 137 Ariz.-, 669 P.2d 592 (App.1983). The court approved the procedure — properly in my view — even though it applied to all cases that come before the judge in question and is, therefore, much more of a “rule” than the “onetime” procedure followed in the case at bench. It was not and has never been suggested that a trial judge must get the approval of this court before deciding whether or how to allow jury questions to witnesses. The same may be said of methods of settling jury instructions, handling motions in limine, conducting pretrial conferences, holding settlement discussions, regulating argument, handling objections and numerous other aspects of trial procedure. In fact, no procedure exists whereby a trial judge can obtain the opinion of this court, in advance, before using some technique which, although not prohibited, is not expressly permitted by rule.
The inherent discretion of each trial judge to control his or her own courtroom is one of the strong points of the common law. Of course, we must draw the line where a trial judge institutes procedures contrary to the rules or inconsistent with their spirit. At the same time, we must leave the trial judge free to adopt procedures and techniques for individual cases which present problems not specifically covered by the rules. I believe that this court should support such efforts and that the position taken today is a step backward.