Court Opinion

ID: 9649777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:09:19.515895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:14.947038
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge
(concurring in the result):
While I concur in the result reached by the court, I do not join in Part III of the opinion. There, the majority, asked only to examine the propriety of the trial court’s conclusion with regard to the application of sanctions under the Jencks Act, examines first the premise (unquestioned by the appellant, the government, or the trial court) that the police notes here were subject to production under the Act. Going back to the literal language of the Act which it terms “unambiguous”,1 virtually ignoring established principles of a dozen or more cases construing that language,2 and lifting excerpts from a recent *705Supreme Court case out of factual context,3 the majority reaches the startling (for me) conclusion that police investigative notes, such as those recorded on a 3 x S inch card, “would rarely, if ever, rise to a degree of completeness . . . sufficient to satisfy the rigorous prerequisites of the Act.” Ante, at p. 700.
Only recently, this court, after thoroughly analyzing principles concerning the government’s duty to preserve and produce police investigative notes, held that on-the-scene police notes containing a description of an assailant given by a victim are potential “statements” within the meaning of the Jencks Act. Moore v. United States, D.C. App., 353 A.2d 16 (1976). See also Williams v. United States, D.C.App., 355 A.2d 784 (1976); Jackson v. United States, D.C.App., 354 A.2d 869 (1976); Jones v. United States, D.C.App., 343 A.2d 346 (1975); Hardy v. United States, D.C.App., 316 A.2d 867 (1974); Banks v. United States, D.C. App., 305 A.2d 256 (1973). As this court emphasized in Moore, “ ‘[t]he initial description of an assailant by the victim or other eyewitness is crucial evidence and the notes taken of that description should be kept and produced.’ ” Moore v. United States, supra at 19, quoting United States v. Bundy, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 191, 192, 472 F.2d 1266, 1267 (1972) (Leventhal, J., concurring) .
I am concerned not only with the majority’s pronouncements concerning police notes in general, but also with the gratuitous observation that the particular notes in this case may not have constituted a substantially verbatim statement4 under subsection (e) (2) of the Jencks Act. Ante, at p. 699. I agree that the trial court in administering the Jencks Act should not overlook its initial obligation to determine whether given materials contain a substantially verbatim record of a witness’ statement. As noted above, however, the government in this case did not question the fact that the lost notes were Jencks material, either at trial or in its brief on appeal. The trial court had no need to make an express finding that the lost material was a “statement” under subsection (e) (2) since the issue was never in dispute. It has been raised for the first time by this court.
Furthermore, the majority’s conclusion that the police notes in this case did not constitute a substantially verbatim statement within the meaning of the Jencks Act is rather extraordinary in light of the officer’s testimony that he wrote down substantially everything the complainant told him while describing her assailant.5 See Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 352-53, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959). Surely, the determination of whether given *706materials constitute a statement does not turn on whether they were recorded on a 3x5 card. In my opinion, the trial court quite properly considered the notes in question-to be subject to the production requirement of the Jencks Act and determined that a sanction for their nonproduction was unnecessary because the substance of the statement had been incorporated into another document, a PD Form 251, which had been made available to defense counsel.6 I would affirm solely on the ground that appellant suffered no prejudice from non-production of the “statement”.

. I question how this language, which has been the subject of so much litigation, could be termed “unambiguous”.

. See, e. g., Moore v. United States, D.C.App., 353 A.2d 16 (1976); Banks v. United States, D.C.App., 305 A.2d 256, 258-59 (1973); United States v. Harrison, 173 U.S.App.D.C. 260, 524 F.2d 421, 422 n. 1, 433-34 (1975); United States v. Maynard, 155 U.S.App.D.C. 223, 229-30, 476 F.2d 1170, 1176-77 (1973); United States v. Perry, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 89, 97, 471 F.2d 1057, 1065 *705(1972) ; United States v. Bundy, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 191, 192, 472 F.2d 1266, 1267 (1972); United States v. Barnes, 150 U.S.App.D.C. 319, 322, 464 F.2d 828, 831 (1972) (Fahy, J., concurring), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 986, 93 S.Ct. 1514, 36 L.Ed.2d 183 (1973); United States v. Hines, 147 U.S.App.D.C. 249, 268-69, 455 F.2d 1317, 1336-37 (1972) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 975, 92 S.Ct. 2427, 32 L.Ed.2d 675 (1972); United States v. Bryant, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 132, 140-42, 439 F.2d 642, 650-52 (1971). See also Williams v. United States, D.C.App., 355 A.2d 784, 788 (1976); Jackson v. United States, D.C.App., 354 A.2d 869, 871 (1976); Jones v. United States, D.C.App., 343 A.2d 346, 351-52 (1975); Hardy v. United States, D.C.App., 316 A.2d 867, 871 (1974) (Gallagher, J., concurring); Savage v. United States, D.C.App., 313 A.2d 880, 883-84 (1974); United States v. Clemons, 144 U.S.App.D.C. 235, 239, 445 F.2d 711, 715 (Bazelon, C. J., concurring), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 956, 92 S.Ct. 322, 30 L.Ed.2d 273 (1971).

. See Moore v. United States, supra at 18-19; Johnson v. United States, D.C.App., 322 A.

. Goldberg v. United States, 96 S.Ct. 1338 (1976).

. I cannot agree that a police officer is unable or unlikely to record verbatim at least a portion of a witness’ on-the-scene statement. “[I]t would seem only reasonable that specific words of description would be written down in the course of even the roughest note-taking.” United States v. Hines, supra at 268, 455 F.2d at 1336 (dissent).

. The officer stated that he wrote down what the complainant told him and that the only thing he left out was a reference to the assailant’s sideburns which the complainant had tried to describe with hand motions. Thus, if the notes were sketchy in nature, so also was the description provided by the complainant. *7062d 590 (1974); Banks v. United States, supra at 258.