Court Opinion

ID: 9733267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:00:45.735199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:40.060587
License: Public Domain

VAN DYKE, P. J.
I dissent.
The judicial discretion vested in the trial court has not been abused. Mandate lies to control judicial discretion only when that discretion has been abused, and, in a legal sense, discretion is abused when, and only when, in the exercise of its discretion, the trial court exceeds the bounds of reason, all the circumstances before it being considered. (State Farm etc. *138Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 47 Cal.2d 428, 432 [304 P.2d 13].) It is not our province to place ourselves in the position of the trial judge and to weigh the evidence in favor of, or against, granting the inspection request. Above all, it is not our province, merely because we chance to disagree with the conclusions of the trial judge, to substitute our discretionary judgment for his own. (Adoption of Martin, 76 Cal.App.2d 133,136 [172 P.2d 552].) I think further that, in granting or refusing to grant motions for pretrial inspection of documents in the hands of the prosecution in a criminal case, or like motions to compel the prosecution to reveal the information it has, or any part thereof especially desired by the defense, fairness to both sides will be best served by leaving the matter in the hands of the trial judge, save only where it is quite clear that abuse of discretion has occurred. Trial judges have definite advantages not possessed by reviewing courts in determining whether or not fairness warrants the disclosure sought.
In this case the motion for inspection is based upon the identical affidavits of six persons who all aver that they were interviewed by prison officials and members of the district attorney’s office and that what they said was taken down in the form of tape recordings, stenographic notes, or by other means. These affidavits are significant for what they conceal rather than for what they reveal. The affiants state that they were in the vicinity “of the first tier, screened section, Number One Building at or about 4:30 P.M. on the 6th day of September, 1960.” No statement is made that any of them saw or heard anything of importance connected with the killing of Morris. For all that appears they may have told the officials little, if anything, relating thereto. The affidavits do not say the affiants cannot recall in major part whatever it was they may have seen or heard. They go no further than to state that there may be some details which they now may in some measure be unable to recall. They have not seen fit to give the court even a summary of what they saw or heard, or a summary of what they told the officials, and surely in the short time of 44 days they have not forgotten in major part what they saw and heard concerning the dramatic incident of Morris’ killing, nor, in major part, what they told the officials. The trial court could surely say that the main picture must still be in their minds in both aspects, and none of them say it isn’t; and could reasonably conclude that if there were details that were material they would fall readily into place in the picture and be recalled by anyone who could recall the picture.
*139The affidavits themselves by the little they state and the lot they omit might well have impressed the trial court as having been carefully tailored; and that court may well have concluded that the ever-present “possibility that a defendant may be acting in bad faith and may be seeking merely to acquire advance knowledge of the details of the prosecution’s ease with a view to shaping his defense accordingly” (Cash v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.2d 72, 75 [346 P.2d 407]) had become a strong probability.
There is of course no showing that the officials have in anywise hindered interviewing and reinterviewing each and all of these six people who may have seen or heard something material in respect of the alleged murder; and there can be no doubt that if they saw anything of moment they have been able to recall it in large part, and relate it to defense counsel. Neither is it probable that they cannot now recall, and certainly they do not say they cannot recall, in major part what they told the officials. If they saw and heard things material to prosecution or defense and did not reveal them to the officials but denied their knowledge of them then they are untrustworthy witnesses who ought to be left where their dishonesty placed them. It is no more open to defense than to prosecution to play games.
There is about this entire situation sufficient to justify the trial court in concluding that there is here no more than “a mere desire for the benefit of all information which has been obtained by the People in their investigation of the crime.” (People v. Cooper, 53 Cal.2d 755, 770 [3 Cal.Rptr. 148, 349 P.2d 964].)
I would deny the writ.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 10, 1961. Van Dyke, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 12, 1961. Schauer, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.