Court Opinion

ID: 9530838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:04:05.469433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:15.754336
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice
(dissenting).
Chief Justice LA PRADE and I concur with the majority that the problem presented here is confined to a “narrow jurisdictional question”, but we do not agree with their conclusion that the lower court had jurisdiction to enter an order for discovery.
This court held in Cochrane v. State, 48 Ariz. 124, 59 P.2d 658:1
“ * * * But if we concede defendant asked for a copy of the stenographic transcription of defendant’s confession, and the court refused to *134order the county attorney to furnish him with it, we do not think the ruling was error. * * * They are the private papers of the person or persons who take the pains and trouble of making them. * * * ” 48 Ariz. 134, 59 P.2d 662.
The trial courts of this state were prior to’ the majority opinion precluded from granting discovery to a defendant in a criminal case for the reason that a confession was the private paper of the person who takes the pains and trouble of making it. The question was not open; it was stare decisis, and binding on the trial court. Cf. Bourjois Sales Corporation v. Dorfman, 273 N.Y. 167, 7 N.E.2d 30, 110 A.L.R. 1411. When the majority hold that “the trial court under its inherent powers had jurisdiction to enter the order in question” they are holding that the trial court had jurisdiction under its inherent powers to overrule this court. The trial court had the jurisdiction to be wrong, that is to commit error, but it did not have the slightest modicum of jurisdiction by way of inherent power, or otherwise, to enter a valid order changing the rule of law previously announced as controlling.
This court adopted the Rules of Criminal Procedure for the Superior Courts of Arizona including Rule 195 2 pursuant to legislative direction that the Supreme Court “shall regulate pleading, practice and procedure in judicial proceedings in all courts of the state”. A.R.S. § 12-109, Laws of 1939, Chapter 8, Section 1. Concerning these rules we have said:
“ * * * The rules of criminal procedure are not fragmentary or makeshift. They purport to put into effect a new system, and a complete one so far as any system can be said to be complete in whose nature growth is inherent. * * * ” State v. Chee, 74 Ariz. 402, 409, 250 P.2d 985, 989.
Rule 195 prescribes the circumstances and conditions which govern the inspection and copying of books, papers and documents in the hands of a prosecuting attorney. By holding that there is inherent power in the trial court to allow discovery of books, papers and documents under circumstances *135other than those included within Rule 195 the door is opened wide to each judge to adopt that practice which seems then most consistent with his own concept of what constitutes the due administration of justice.3 This completely nullifies the Rules of Criminal Procedure as a consistent system for practice. Such power has been repeatedly denied. State v. Johnson, 80 Ariz. 45, 292 P.2d 465, and State ex rel. Mahoney v. Stevens, 79 Ariz. 298, 288 P.2d 1077. In the latter case we said:
“ * * * If the magistrate’s action in the instant case is contrary to the authority conferred upon him by the Rules of Criminal Procedure and applicable statutes, then no jurisdiction existed to render the particular order, * * * ” 79 Ariz. 300, 288 P.2d 1078.
We think that the reasoning in United States v. Peltz, D.C., 18 F.R.D. 394, 406, 407, further points up why the courts of this state should not go beyond the scope of Rule 195:
“Opposed to this school of thought are those who argue that there are distinguishing features present in a criminal proceeding which necessitate sharply limited discovery provisions. The advocates of this point of view emphasize that there is a greater danger of perjury in criminal cases, and that since the defendant in a criminal case can refuse to testify at all, broader discovery provisions in criminal cases would really mean broader discovery only of the prosecution’s case. Thus, Judge Learned Hand, in United States v. Garsson [D.C.S.D.N.Y., 291 F. 646], wrote:
“ ‘Under our criminal procedure the accused has every advantage. While the prosecution is held rigidly to the charge, he need not disclose the barest outline of his defense. He is immune from question or comment on his silence; he cannot be convicted when there is the least fair doubt in the minds of any one of the twelve. Why in addition he should in advance have the whole evidence against him to pick over at his leisure, and make his defense, fairly or foully, I have never been able to see. * * * Our dangers do not lie in too little tenderness to the accused. Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream. What we need to fear is the archaic formalism and the watery sentiment that obstructs, delays, and defeats the prosecution of crime.’
******
“If the law with respect to pre-trial discovery of a defendant’s statement *136in criminal cases is to be amended beyond the present provisions of Rule 16, that reform should rest upon something more solid than semantic subtlety. The subject is important to prosecutors, defendants and the community at large. The results of such amendment would be far-reaching. The question is controversial. Within the same district and circuit, judges and lawyers may well differ in their evaluation of the competing social policies that form the matrix of the problem, as well as in their appraisal of the practical factors involved in the administration and enforcement of the criminal laws.
“It is well to remember that we are dealing with a subject that is peculiarly within the Supreme Court’s rule-making and rule-changing power. Should the Supreme Court deem it appropriate to consider the question whether Rule 16 should be amended to permit fuller discovery, the Supreme Court has available the traditional method of affording an opportunity to Bench and Bar, including prosecutors and law school professors, to hammer out their differences on the anvil of debate before an Advisory Committee. Through such a medium, judicial creativity in modernizing another aspect of procedural criminal law could express itself effectively. In this particular area of the law, such a technique of reform is superior to the case-to-case decisional approach, with its concomitant uncertainty and conflicts, individualizing facts, and inarticulated basic assumptions of policy.”
For the foregoing reasons we think the alternative writ should be made permanent.
LA PRADE, C. J., concurs.

. Cochrane v. State was overruled in part in Kinsey v. State, 49 Ariz. 201, 65 P.2d 1141, 125 A.L.R. 3, but not on the point relevant herein nor in the particular language quoted.

. “Rule 195. Right of defendant to discovery and inspection “Upon motion of a defendant at anytime after the filing of the indictment or information, the court may order the .county attorney to permit the defendant to inspect and copy or photograph designated books, papers, documents or tangible objects, obtained from or belonging to the defendant or obtained from others by seizure or by process, upon a showing that the items sought may be material to the preparation of his defense and that the request is reasonable. The order shall specify the time, place and manner of making the inspection and of taking the copies or photographs and may prescribe such terms and conditions as are just.” (Italics ours.)
Rule 195 is identical to Rule 16, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

. The majority bottom their decision on the statement “that if the order in question were found to he essential to the due administration of justice, respondent court did have jurisdiction to issue it under its inherent powers * *