Court Opinion

ID: 9561249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:05:55.657344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:41.979599
License: Public Domain

*598Blackburn, Presiding Judge,
concurring fully and specially.
I concur fully with the judgment and analysis of the majority. I write separately to clarify the procedural requirements of the criminal discovery statute. The State has not shown “good cause” for its failure to comply with OCGA § 17-16-8 (a), the criminal discovery statute, simply because it did not “have the birth dates in its files.” This excuse cannot be accepted as “good cause” under the statute. If compliance can be so easily avoided, the discovery statute is rendered meaningless.
OCGA § 17-16-8 (a), applying equally to the prosecution and defense, mandates the exchange of minimal, but critical information: “The prosecuting attorney . . . and the defendant’s attorney . . . shall furnish to the opposing counsel as an officer of the court, in confidence, the names, current locations, dates of birth, and telephone numbers of that party’s witnesses.” (Emphasis supplied.) Both the prosecution and the defense are statutorily required to provide these four pieces of information about their respective witnesses. Compliance is mandatory unless “for good cause the judge allows an exception.” Id.
The purpose of this statute, as with the other statutes governing discovery in a criminal case, is to ensure that the criminal defendant receives a fair trial. “[T]he State and a criminal defendant [should] begin on a level playing field at the outset of trial.” Hill v. State, 232 Ga. App. 561, 564 (502 SE2d 505) (1998) (Blackburn, J, concurring specially). Specifically, this statute gives both sides the opportunity to interview witnesses in preparation for trial.
A primary purpose of requiring disclosure of evidence and witnesses well in advance of trial is to allow counsel time to reflect with deliberation upon such evidence, to consider how it could best be presented at trial and how it affects her overall strategy, and to seek to develop other evidence to corroborate or impeach the discovered evidence.
Baker v. State, 238 Ga. App. 285, 287 (518 SE2d 455) (1999). A witness’ birth date is used to develop evidence to impeach the witness — it is necessary to research any criminal record.
The State did not provide the birth dates because the dates were not in its file. Dickerson filed a motion to compel the State to produce either its witnesses’ criminal histories or their birth dates. The trial court denied the motion to compel, holding that, without evidence to the contrary, it could not compel the State to produce information which the State did not have.1 Dickerson’s ability to obtain the crimi*599nal history of the subject witness who had a conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude was hampered by the State’s failure to provide the required information, and defendant was unable to impeach said witness.
As the statute obligates the State to give the information to the defendant, it has a duty to attempt to obtain the information about its witnesses. The State cannot fulfill its obligation by simply looking in its file. The statute clearly requires the parties to provide four pieces of information, and only in the rarest of circumstances should the information truly be unavailable.
The State asserted that it did not have to go looking for the information. I disagree. Although the State complains that getting the information is burdensome, this information is routinely obtained by the State, and the discovery statute places the same burden on the defense. That burden is the cost to the parties of receiving the benefits of the discovery process. The legislature intended for both sides to comply with the law, and the statute contemplates a reasonable effort by both sides to meet their statutory obligations.
The information is reasonably available to the State by communicating with its witnesses, the police department, the investigators in the district attorney’s office, or checking available records, including computer searches. The State should not be allowed to avoid compliance with the law by producing only the information which it elects to include in its file. See OCGA §§ 17-16-1 (1); 17-16-4; Marshall v. State, 230 Ga. App. 116, 118 (2) (495 SE2d 585) (1998) (the prosecutor’s ignorance of discoverable information does not justify noncompliance with the discovery statute); Baker, supra. To hold otherwise, would result in an expedient means for the State to avoid compliance — merely not including the information in their file, not asking their witness, the police, or investigators for such information, or not checking the computer or criminal files. This is impermissible and circumvents the very purpose of the statute. Nowhere does the State contend that the statutorily required information was not available through one of the methods outlined above or indeed that they had even attempted to so obtain the information.
Thus, to establish good cause for failing to comply with OCGA § 17-16-8 (a), the State has the burden of showing what reasonable efforts it has made and why such efforts failed to be fruitful as to those statutorily required items: name, location, date of birth and phone number of the witness. It is not enough to say it is not in “our” file, when it may very well be in the police or investigative file. The *600State has an absolute duty to provide such information absent a showing of good cause to excuse it of this duty.
Such a showing necessarily entails outlining the efforts made, but which ultimately failed, to obtain the information. Who originally communicated with or interviewed the witness? Why was the information not obtained then as a standard part of witness information? Who, including police or other investigators, has information on the witness? How does the State presently communicate with its witness? Does the State have the ability to check criminal records on its witnesses? Did it do so in this instance? If not, why not? Did the State check the criminal records on any of defendant’s witnesses? What effort would it, in fact, take to obtain the required information? These questions are not exhaustive but are intended to demonstrate the type of review the court must conduct in its inquiry. The court must satisfy itself that the State’s efforts rise to the level reflected in these inquiries. The announced results of these inquiries must be credible and reasonable before the State can be excused of its obligation to provide the required information.
Morrill v. State, 216 Ga. App. 468, 472 (7) (454 SE2d 796) (1995), cited by the State, did not involve the statutorily required information herein involved and does not require a different result. In Mor-rill, the defendant claimed entitlement to all of the police investigatory files. There we simply held that
there is no constitutional requirement that the prosecution make a complete and detailed accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work on a case. Certainly, a prosecutor has no obligation to contact local law enforcement and judicial agencies on behalf of the defense to uncover any information which might be remotely relevant.
(Punctuation omitted.) Id. Unlike the information requested in Mor-rill, here the statute requires that specific information be provided. Because the statute requires that specific data be provided, the State should either routinely obtain the information in anticipation of having to provide it or obtain it upon request. Moreover, no unique, detailed, time-consuming investigation is demanded of the State for the benefit of the defendant. The legislature clearly intended that parties, including the State, expend that level of effort which the production of the information that the statute demands be produced might reasonably require.
In Baker, supra, we held that,
[w]hen wrongfully withheld evidence is disclosed for the first time at the start of the trial, the defendant may be pre*601sumed to have been prejudiced, as his attorney has not had the opportunity to reflect upon such evidence and to determine what other investigation may be required as a result of its use and how it impacts the existing trial strategy and the subpoena and call of witnesses.
Decided December 3, 1999
Reconsiderations denied December 17, 1999
Chandler & Britt, Walter M. Britt, Deborah F Weiss, for appellant.
Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Donald P. Geary, Cari K. Johanson, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
Id. at 287. Consequently, in Baker, the State’s failure to comply with the discovery statute resulted in the reversal of Baker’s conviction. In this case, the defendant, through his own efforts, was able to obtain the witness’ date of birth but did not have time to obtain the criminal history with which he could have impeached the witness.
Because Dickerson did not request a continuance at that point, he cannot now complain that he did not have time to obtain the criminal history, as the trial court might have given him the time upon request. He has waived his right to complain under these circumstances. But for this waiver, I would reverse this case based on the State’s failure to meet its mandatory discovery obligations, with the resulting harm to the defendant. However unjust this result might appear when comparing the State’s failure to that of the defendant, we are constrained to follow the holdings of this Court and those of the Supreme Court of Georgia which have consistently required defendants to seek continuances when confronted with potential error which a continuance would avoid. See Jenkins v. State, 235 Ga. App. 547, 549 (3) (a) (510 SE2d 87) (1998) (failure to move for continuance precludes defendant from asserting his counsel was not afforded ample opportunity to investigate); Watts v. State, 265 Ga. 888 (2) (463 SE2d 696) (1995) (failure to move for a continuance precluded consideration of error).
For this reason alone, I would affirm rather than reverse in this case.

 I note that in this case, even though defense counsel was given the witness’ phone *599number, he was thwarted in his efforts to get the birth date because the witness chose not to speak with him until the Friday before trial.