Court Opinion

ID: 9659861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:56:15.662409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:12.224798
License: Public Domain

DAUPHINOT, Justice,
concurring.
Although I concur in the result reached by the majority, I respectfully disagree with *889their conclusion that because the State did not act in bad faith, Appellant was not entitled to a continuance in order to prepare for the witness’s testimony. Such reasoning leads to an untenable rule that when an attorney of the stature of Fred Rabalais, whose reputation for honesty and the highest standards of integrity is well known, is involved, the trial court is never obligated to grant the opposing party additional preparation time when an unexpected witness emerges.
It is undisputed that Appellant’s jail mate, McDonald, volunteered to testify against Appellant on Thursday evening before trial the following week. The State immediately faxed this information to Appellant on Friday morning. The following Monday the trial court heard and denied Appellant’s motion for continuance. Nothing in the record even hints that Appellant could have reasonably anticipated that McDonald would testify against him. Indeed, the State had no reason to anticipate McDonald would be a witness until Thursday evening.
It is common knowledge that an attorney is prohibited from interviewing a criminal defendant without permission of that defendant’s attorney.1 Appellant’s attorney, therefore, needed time to obtain permission from McDonald’s attorney so he could conduct his own interview of McDonald. Appellant was not required to rely solely on the State’s representations without doing additional investigation. Failure to investigate is a ground for finding ineffective assistance of counsel.2 Voir dire began on Tuesday. Any trial attorney and any trial judge is well aware that both sides must have developed the theory of their case by the time voir dire begins.
The framers of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure have long recognized the importance of trial preparation. Rule 166b sets a thirty-day deadline for supplementing a pai’ty’s witness list.3 Thirty days is considered the minimum time necessary to deal effectively with notice of a new witness unless the trial judge finds good cause for deviating from the well-established rule. Trial by ambush has long been abhorred in both civil and criminal prosecutions. Surely a capital murder defendant is just as entitled to adequate trial preparation as is a party in a civil case. The danger of inadequate trial preparation through the fault of neither the State nor the defense greatly outweighs the slight inconvenience of delaying a trial for a few days. This danger cannot be justified on the ground that the State acted in good faith.
The highest courts in our state have examined the rules of evidence and determined that our judicial system is better served by adopting uniform rules of evidence. We should also look carefully at rule 166b, consider its bases and its policy implications, and hold that a criminal defendant is entitled to a reasonable time to prepare for trial after the State learns that the discovery it has provided is either incomplete or no longer accurate. I would hold that the trial court erred in denying Appellant’s motion for continuance.
It is rare that a party can show a court in advance the specific harm he will suffer if he is denied a continuance. But a motion for new trial is often a sufficient vehicle to prove harm. Because Appellant did not provide any record of how he was prejudiced by his counsel’s inadequate preparation time or of what benefit he would have attained by having more time to prepare for trial, I concur in the majority’s result.

. See Tex. Disciplinary R. Prof’l Conduct 4.02(a), reprinted in Tex. Gov’t Code Ann., tit. 2, subtit. G app. A (Vernon 1998) (Tex State Bar R. art. X, § 9).

. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2066, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

. See TexR. Civ. P. 166b(6).