Court Opinion

ID: 9631634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:45:17.549975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:58.072947
License: Public Domain

LANKFORD, Judge,
concurring.
I write separately to clarify my reasons for joining the majority.
In my view, the essence of the court’s holding is that fundamental fairness may require that a defendant have access to information within the control of a victim prior to trial. The defendant has a basic, overriding right to present an effective defense. If the trial judge determines that pretrial access to information is essential for an effective defense, then the right to due process of law under the federal constitution preempts the victim’s rights under the state constitution.
This holding is not premised upon a recognition of a general constitutional right to pretrial discovery. Nor does the holding in this case legitimize a claim to such a general right. Rather, it rests on the fact that fulfillment of defendant’s trial rights may, in narrow circumstances, rest upon pretrial procedures.
Nor in my view is the relief we have granted founded directly upon Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Although Brady involved an application of the due process clause to ensure a defendant’s access to exculpatory materials, the court’s holding was limited to materials within the control of the prosecutor. The court’s reasoning was that the state’s conduct in obtaining a criminal conviction through suppression of the truth intolerably thwarts the accomplishment of justice, the ultimate goal of every criminal trial. If the information sought in the case at hand is not within the prosecutor’s control, Brady does not apply.
Instead, we recognize that in some cases exculpatory information may be of little or no value unless the defendant has access to it prior to trial. This may be so when information must be considered by experts in preparing for their trial testimony, for example. When the information is both essential to the defense and requires pretrial disclosure to have value to the defense, then due process requires that defendant be allowed to obtain it.
I therefore concur in the majority’s opinion.