Court Opinion

ID: 9724279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:51:26.106011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:58.873975
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(concurring). The writer concurs in affirmance, but, where the majority finds harmless error in the trial court’s admitting the list of witnesses furnished by the prosecutor, the writer would find no error at all. Defendant moved and the trial court ordered the prosecution to provide names and addresses of witnesses it intended to call at the time of trial. The prosecutor furnished a list of 97 witnesses, 50 of which were public employees or medical witnesses. (Thirty-one were members of the Madison police department, two were members of the Madison fire department, two were deputy sheriffs, five were employed by the state crime *324laboratory, one was a Madison city planner, two were hospital employees and seven were doctors.) As to such witnesses, whether one or more persons in each category would be called to the witness stand would depend on the turn of events at the trial. If matters related to police custody or medical records were not disputed, one witness in a category might be all that was needed. Given challenge or dispute, the others would be needed. At the time of furnishing the list, the district attorney could not say other than that he intended to call all of these witnesses if and when their testimony was required by what transpired at the time of trial. Actually, 22 of these witnesses were called to testify at the trial.
Additionally, 47 witnesses who could be called civilian witnesses, not policemen or firemen or doctors, were listed. Of these, nine were called as witnesses. The defendant furnished a list of 59 witnesses that he intended to call. Every name on the prosecutor’s list of civilian-type witnesses was listed on the defendant’s list. In fact, the name and address of LaMar Walker, whose appearance on the witness stand was claimed by the defense to constitute a surprising development, was listed on the defendant’s list of intended witnesses, as well as on the state’s list. Since the first two pages of the defendant’s three-page list of witnesses that the defense intended to call was a recapitulation of all the civilian witnesses that were listed in the state’s list, we see no basis for either the claim that the state’s list was too long or that the defendant was surprised by a witness taking the stand whom he had listed as one he intended to call.
The majority opinion sees a great variance in our statute requiring furnishing a list of witnesses the district attorney “intends to call” (sec. 971.23 (3) (a), Stats.) and a Florida statute requiring furnishing a list of witnesses known by the prosecutor “to have information which may be relevant to the offense charged, and *325to any defense of the person charged . . . .” (Fla. Cr. P. R. 1.220 (e)). The writer does not. Obviously, the Florida law requires more than the Wisconsin statute, but each states a minimum requirement, not a maximum limit. The purpose of both is to serve the purpose of full disclosure of the names and addresses upon whose testimony the prosecution, or defendant, may rely. The writer agrees with the court majority that the Wisconsin statute requires only that the prosecutor furnish a list of witnesses whom he intends to call as witnesses, as of the date on which the list is furnished. However, the writer would read into the statute no prohibition against furnishing additional names of witnesses whom the prosecutor believes possess relevant information and who may, dependent upon developments at the time of trial, be called as státe witnesses. The writer sees no error in the trial court refusing to order the district attorney to submit a more abbreviated list of intended state witnesses, particularly not where the defendant placed on his list of intended witnesses every civilian witness listed by the prosecution, including the very witness whose testimony raises the issue.