Court Opinion

ID: 9531533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:12:41.732581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:30.417883
License: Public Domain

VAIDIK, Judge,
concurring as to Issue I, and concurring in result as to Issue II.
I agree with my colleagues that the evidence is sufficient to support Gault’s conviction for possession of cocaine with the intent to deliver. I further agree that Gault was not entitled to inspect the police report pursuant to Indiana Rule of Evidence (“IRE”) 612 as the State and not Gault was the adverse party for purposes of that rule. That being the case, we should affirm the trial court and move on to the next case.
Instead, the majority continues its analysis and cites Beckham v. State, 531 N.E.2d 475, 476-77 (Ind.1988), for the principle that “a party waives its work product privilege if the privileged material is used to refresh the memory of a witness on the stand.” Op. at 734. The majority proposes that this rule applies regardless of which party was examining Officer McGuire. In this regard, the majority suggests that an inquiry under IRE 612 is entirely separate from the question of whether a party has waived its work product privilege. I strongly disagree. It is apparent to me that IRE 612 actually embodies the waiver of the work product privilege in the narrow factual scenario presented in this case.
Beckham does state, “[I]f the reports are used by the witness on the stand, the ‘work product’ privilege is waived.” 531 N.E.2d at 477. Read in isolation, it would appear that the principle applies regardless of which party is doing the questioning that prompts the use of the privileged material to refresh the witness’s memory and therefore conflicts with IRE 612. Placed in its proper context, however, the passage is perfectly consistent with IRE 612. That is, Beckham was a case where the prosecuting attorney allowed a police *738officer to refer to his police report prior to testifying in order to refresh his memory, and the defendant, the adverse party, sought to compel the prosecutor to produce the report for inspection. Though the Indiana Supreme Court held that “if the reports are used by the witness on the stand, the ‘work product’ privilege is waived,” it did so in a context in which the prosecutor was doing the questioning.10
Furthermore, in stating, “[I]f the reports are used by the witness on the stand, the ‘work product’ privilege is waived,” the Beckham Court cited its earlier opinion in Summerlin v. State, 256 Ind. 652, 271 N.E.2d 411 (1971), which, like Beckham, was a case in which the prosecutor was doing the questioning that prompted the use of the privileged material by the witness, thereby making the defendant the adverse party. In Summerlin, the Court held: “If the memoranda used in the instant case were considered privileged or confidential as ‘work product,’ this privilege or confidentiality was waived when they were used on the stand.” 271 N.E.2d at 414. However, the Summerlin Court, in reaching this conclusion, cited with approval the following passage:
While there is some authority to the contrary, it is also the well-settled rule that the opposing party or counsel has the right, on proper demand, to inspect and use for purposes of cross-examination any paper or memorandum which is used by a witness while on the stand for the purpose of refreshing his memory upon the matters as to which he is testifying, and which in fact does tend to refresh his memory.
Id. at 413 (quoting 125 A.L.R. 19, 194-95 (1940)) (emphasis added). The “opposing party or counsel” language in Summerlin is equivalent to the “adverse party” language found in IRE 612. In reaching a different conclusion under Beckham (and, by extension, Summerlin) than it does under IRE 612, the majority is mistaken.
Even assuming, arguendo, that the majority is correct that Beckham conflicts with IRE 612 (which, for the reasons stated above, it does not), I would still hold that disclosure of the police report is not required in this case. “When an Indiana Rule of Evidence conflicts with the common law on a specific issue, the Rule of Evidence controls. See Ind. Evidence Rule 101(a). Here, IRE 612, labeled “Writing or Object Used to Refresh Memory,” addresses the issue of when a party is required to disclose material used to refresh the memory of the witness. The rule clearly requires disclosure to the adverse party. Because IRE 612 controls and because Gault was not the adverse party for purposes of this rule, Gault was not entitled to receive the police report.
If the majority’s interpretation of Beck-ham became the law, it would not only conflict with IRE 612, but the “adverse party” limitation written into IRE 612(a) would be completely eviscerated. That is, whereas IRE 612(a) allows a defendant to obtain a police report from the prosecutor only if the prosecutor prompted the use of the report (because the defendant would be the “adverse party”), the majority would read Beckham to allow a defendant to obtain a police report regardless of who asked the question that prompted the use of the police report to refresh the memory of a witness. IRE 612(a) would be rendered toothless, and a defendant could compel the disclosure of any writing or object he pleased simply by asking questions that require the witness to refresh *739his memory by reference to a writing or object that is the work product of the prosecutor, even if the questions are immaterial and meant only to open the door to the privileged item.
Having concluded, wrongly, in my opinion, that the trial court erred in refusing to allow Gault to review the police report, the majority nonetheless determines that the evidence of his guilt is substantial and affirms the conviction. In doing so, the majority cites Indiana Appellate Rule 66(A) (“No error ... in any ruling ... is ground for granting relief or reversal on appeal where its probable impact, in light of all the evidence in the case, is sufficiently minor so as not to affect the substantial rights of the parties.”). See op. at 737. I question how we can judge the probable impact of the trial court’s refusal to compel disclosure of the police report if we do not know the contents of the report. We do not know the contents of the police report because whether the report constitutes work product was never at issue before the trial court; both parties assumed that the police report constitutes work product of the prosecutor. The only question before the trial court was whether the prosecutor had waived its work product privilege under IRE 612. Consequently, there was no in camera review of the document by the trial court, and we do not have a copy of the report in the record before us. Therefore, even if I were to agree that the trial court erred in denying Gault access to the police report, I do not understand how we could determine the probable impact of that error on Gault’s conviction without knowing the contents of the report.
This leads me to my greatest concern with the lead opinion. The majority uses this case as a springboard to comment, in dicta, on the work product privilege as it pertains to police reports. I do not share the conviction of my colleagues on this issue. First, I do not see this as a pervasive problem that needs fixing. Second, to the extent that it is a problem, we should deal with it in cases where the issue is squarely presented to us. For these reasons, I concur in result as to issue II.

. In the end, the Beckham Court held that the defendant, even as the adverse party, was not entitled to production of the police report for inspection because the officer referred to the report prior to testifying, not while he was “on the stand.” 531 N.E.2d at 477.