Court Opinion

ID: 9533637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:33:26.627541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:06.395411
License: Public Domain

Justice CASTILLE,
concurring.
I concur in the Majority’s acceptance of jurisdiction over this matter and its mandate, which vacates the order of the Superior Court and remands this case to the trial court for further proceedings. I write separately, however, because my view of the question of appealability differs significantly from that expressed by the Majority.
At the root of this appeal is the Commonwealth’s petition of August 6, 2001, which sought a certificate directing the defense’s out-of-state expert, Suzanna Ullery, to “appear and testify” at trial and the expert’s employer, Bode Technology Group, to forward to the Commonwealth “a copy of any and all data, test results, and/or reports compiled by the Bode Technology Group when conducting its analysis of the evidence in question.”1 Petition at ¶ 8. Notably, however, the proposed certificate, which was attached to the petition, did not direct production of any documents or reports. In any event, the trial court did not sign or adopt the proposed certificate, nor did it otherwise rule upon the Commonwealth’s requests. The Commonwealth’s second petition was substantially scaled-down and did not seek production of any reports, data, or results. The second proposed certificate directed only the attendance and testimony of Ms. Ullery at trial. On August 7, 2001, the trial court signed the second proposed certificate, pursuant to the Uniform Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5961, et seq. However, as the Majority notes, the trial court did not direct defense counsel to disclose to the Commonwealth any information respecting Ullery or the DNA testing that Bode had conducted. The trial court then denied appellant’s motion to quash the certificate, and that denial is the order which is the subject of this appeal.
*227Unfortunately, the true nature and scope of the trial court’s certificate here apparently has been lost upon the parties and the lower courts. Appellant appears from the outset to have misapprehended the certificate, as he argued in his motion to quash that the purpose of the certificate “was to subpoena the records and reports of the Bode Technology Group, as well as to secure the results of any DNA testing.” Motion at ¶ 6. On appeal to this Court, appellant continues to miss the mark with his argument, urging, at various points in his brief, the privileged nature of: the results of Bode’s DNA testing, see Appellant’s Brief at 9, 15, 22; “the records [and] reports prepared by Bode,” id at 14; and Ms. Ullery’s expert opinions, id at 14-15. The Commonwealth also seems to misperceive the actual content of the mere witness-appearance certificate granted in its favor—which notably was drafted by the Commonwealth—repeatedly insisting upon the non-privileged nature of Bode’s “DNA test results.” Commonwealth Brief at 15, 20, 29.2
Adding to the confusion created by the parties’ off-point arguments are the opinions of the lower courts. Although the trial court recognized that “the Commonwealth’s Certificate does not seek any written materials from Bode, but rather the testimony of Ms. Ul[l]ery,” it went further in its opinion, offering that: “[E]ven if Ul[l]ery appears at trial with any writings produced incidental to the DNA testing of the jeans, 1. e., ‘test results and materials in support thereof relative to [the] analysis conducted by Bode,’ ... there is presently nothing ... to suggest such writings would be protected.” Trial Ct. Op. at 6 (quoting Amended Petition). Moreover, the trial court found that Ms. Ullery’s work for the defense in the instant case, in conducting the DNA testing, was “without inherent legal meaning,” strongly implying that whatever results or opinions she possessed, memorialized or otherwise, would not be protected under the work-product doctrine if the Commonwealth sought to question her on her defense work. *228Id. On appeal, the Superior Court panel majority, in affirming the trial court’s reasoning, overstated the scope of the certificate, finding that the trial court had required Ms. Ullery to attend and “testify as to the results of DNA testing ... conducted on a pair of blue jeans.” Slip Op. at 1. In sum, both parties have regrettably approached the issue as if it involved an order compelling disclosure of the expert’s findings or opinions, and the lower courts’ opinions were not exactly models of clarity in appreciating the governing record.
Contrary to the assumptions and implications attending the arguments of both parties, and notwithstanding the misplaced commentary by both lower courts, the signed certificate at issue in this case was not a subpoena duces tecum.3 It did not order the production of any tangible evidence relating to Ms. Ullery’s expert research or opinions. Nor did it purport to compel Ms. Ullery’s testimony regarding that research or those opinions. In short, it was not a discovery order. It simply was a certificate to be presented to a judge in the Commonwealth of Virginia for proceedings to procure a subpoena for Ms. Ullery’s attendance at appellant’s trial. Accordingly, the sole and exceedingly narrow issue of appealability here is whether the defendant in a criminal case may appeal, as of right, from a pre-trial order refusing to quash a certificate which directs an out-of-state defense expert to “appear and testify,” where the defense has assured the court that it does not intend to call that expert at trial.
In answering this question in the affirmative, the Majority assumes that the body of a person—where that person is a defense expert in a criminal case—is protected “attorney work-product,” no different from reports or documents. The Majority indulges this fiction so that it can fit the square peg presented by this case—i.e., a mere order directing an out-of-state defense witness to appear at trial—into the round hole that is this Court’s attorney work-product jurisprudence in the context of the collateral order doctrine. By doing this, the *229Majority converts the matter into a discovery case, which in turn resolves the question of collateral order appealability. While I agree with the Majority’s articulation of the collateral order rule and with its ultimate conclusion that the denial of the motion to quash the certificate is appealable under that rule, I would focus more closely upon the actual nature of the order, and thus, I would accept jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine for very different reasons.
I agree fully with the Majority’s reasoning concerning whether the certificate in question was separable from the main cause of action below, see Majority op. at 944, but take issue with the Majority’s analysis of the second and third prongs of the collateral order test. The Majority, relying on Commonwealth v. Dennis, 859 A.2d 1270 (Pa.2004), and Ben v. Schwartz, 556 Pa. 475, 729 A.2d 547 (1999), finds that the importance prong of the collateral order rule—ie., whether the right implicated by appellant’s claim is too important to be denied review—has been satisfied because the trial court’s certificate “implicates, inter alia, the work-product doctrine.” Majority op. at 944. Contrary to the Majority, I would not so readily group the mere witness appearance order challenged in this case with those that were at issue in Dennis and Ben. Those cases involved trial court discovery orders which actually directed the production of documents. Neither case can be considered controlling here because the “right” implicated by appellant’s challenge is not the same as the rights involved in those cases—ie., an attorney’s right to keep confidential his thought processes in Dennis, 859 A.2d at 1278, and the statutory privilege asserted by the third-party witness in Ben, 729 A.2d at 549. In light of the actual order at issue and the procedural posture of this case, the only right at issue—if, indeed, it is a “right” at all—is the right to protect a defense expert from being required to appear at a defendant’s criminal trial. It is a right that falls, at best, one very significant step short of the right to avoid the production of attorney work-product, see Pa.R.Crim.P. 573(G), as extended to include the work-product of an attorney’s agents. See United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 95 S.Ct. 2160, 45 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975). *230Neither appellant nor the Majority has identified any reasons why a mere appearance order should be deemed to satisfy the collateral order doctrine. In my view, because an objection can always be raised at trial to any actual threat to privileged work-produet, and because the defense can always seek relief via a motion in limine, a mere order to appear ordinarily should not be deemed appealable.
I also am not comfortable with the suggestion by Mr. Justice Saylor, in his Concurring Opinion, that our collateral order jurisprudence requires a categorical approach to collateral order “importance.” Rather, the “importance” of a claim or right is always most appropriately analyzed in light of all of the circumstances of a given case. Of course, it may be that certain values, like the confidentiality advanced by the work-product doctrine, are such that they will usually satisfy the importance requirement. But in other instances, there should be room for flexibility. For example, if the order to appear in this case had not been accompanied by expressions of the trial court concerning the applicability of the work-product privilege, or if it were not so apparent that the only reason the Commonwealth sought the witness’s appearance was to breach the privilege, I would hold that the order fails the importance prong of the text.
However, the circumstances of this case are such that it is not a mere order-to-appear case. I would hold that appellant’s claim attains “importance” here not by indulging the fiction that the order was discovery-based, but solely because of the unique circumstances presented. From the outset, the Commonwealth’s intertwining of its desire to have Ms. Ullery present at trial with its desire to actually obtain Bode’s DNA test results caused confusion, as evidenced by the disparity between the Commonwealth’s initial petition and its proposed certificate. Compare Petition at ¶ 8 with Certificate at ¶ 7. The Commonwealth’s conflated position has apparently persisted throughout the litigation, notwithstanding that the order at issue—and appellate courts review orders, not theories, or failed requests—did not direct appellant to produce any documents, test results, or expert opinions. Appellant’s overly *231broad motion to quash contributed to the conflation, and it now appears that both parties either misperceive the order, choose to ignore its contours, or consider it nearly inevitable that Bode’s DNA results will ultimately be “produced” as a result of Ms. Ullery’s appearance. Mere fear of a discovery violation ordinarily would be too attenuated to warrant pretrial review, but what decisively alters the calculus, in my view, is that the trial court has essentially announced in advance that it intends to permit inquiry despite appellant’s work-product claim. The Superior Court’s affirmance only added to the inevitably created by the universally lax approach taken to this litigation. Hence, I would find that the “right” implicated in appellant’s circumstance, if not in his poorly articulated claim, is sufficiently important under these unique circumstances to warrant this Court’s accepting jurisdiction, so as to ensure the administration of justice.
Similarly, I believe that the “irreparably lost claim” element of the collateral order test has been satisfied, not because the attorney work-product doctrine was implicated by the trial court’s certificate, but because it almost certainly will be implicated, indeed, violated, in light of the trial court’s opinion and the litigants’ assumptions attending the case. I would hold that the inevitability of compelled disclosure, notwithstanding the actually benign nature of the trial court’s order, puts appellant’s challenge nearly enough to being irreparably lost that it would be unjust to deny review.
On the merits of the appeal, because I am willing to accept the inevitability that work-product will be affected, I concur in the Majority’s analysis and disposition.

. The witness's name is variously spelled “Ullery'' and "Ulery.” The spelling in text follows that employed in the court's August 7, 2001 order.

. At one point, the Commonwealth expressly submits that it is seeking “facts—DNA test results.” Commonwealth Brief at 20. That may be what the Commonwealth seeks, but the order at the heart of this dispute did not grant it.

. "A subpoena ordering the witness to appear and to bring specified documents, records, or things.” Black's Law Dictionary, 8th Ed. (2004).