Court Opinion

ID: 9487604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:21:33.53438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:22.979732
License: Public Domain

TROTT, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting:
I have no quarrel with the result reached by my colleagues, but I would have dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. In my judgment, we have no Constitutional claim before us that has attained the ripeness required for adjudication. Neither the trial court nor the Supreme Court of the CNMI has inflicted any Constitutional damage on Mr. Campbell, none. The trial court ruled in his favor. The appeal from that ruling was not taken by Campbell but by the government. The Supreme Court simply said to the trial court, “You must look at the evidence to see if it is exculpatory or material before you dismiss the case.” There is not a scintilla of evidence in this record at this point showing a Brady violation has occurred. The prosecution claims the disputed evidence is not exculpatory. No judge has ever reviewed the evidence to see if the Brady claim has any merit.
*550The dismissal was for a violation of a discovery order, not for failure to provide Brady material to the defense. Brady is at best in the starting gate, not on the track. All we end up reviewing is the equivalent of an interlocutory decree from the CNMI Supreme Court telling a trial judge he must examine disputed evidence before he uses its nonproduction during discovery as a reason to dismiss a case without prejudice, period. Now, the judge who prematurely dismissed the case will have to see if the evidence implicates Brady.
Such a decree simply does not involve the Constitution, the treaties, or the law of the United States- in the manner required for us to exercise appellate jurisdiction. The proof of this pudding is found in Judge Kleinfeld’s opinion: “[N]o constitutional violation can [yet] be found.” With great respect for my able colleagues, I believe they have been sidetracked by an inchoate issue not sufficiently ripe to justify our intrusion.
Because our jurisdiction does not attach until such a showing is made, we are at best premature in hearing this case. Under these circumstances, we commit the serious error of arrogating power belonging exclusively to the Supreme Court of the Northern Mariana Islands and to the people to whom that court ultimately answers. By permitting this appeal, we undercut and denigrate the authority of that tribunal by injecting ourselves in an unresolved matter in which we do not yet belong.
My concern is not so much this case — the damage has been done — but the next case where the majority’s opinion will encourage similar appeals where none should lie. Such appeals will only prolong cases unnecessarily and thus interfere with an orderly and expeditious system of justice in the CNMI. To prove my point, I only need publish the date of the arrest, January 4,1992, and the length of the time it has taken to process this federal appeal: eighteen months.