Court Opinion

ID: 9819302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:22:04.559342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:29.883932
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STEIGMANN, specially concurring: Although I agree fully with the court’s opinion, I write specially only to caution the State about the methods it should use when complying with section 115 — 15 of the Procedure Code. That section’s provisions authorize the admission of a laboratory report in lieu of the live testimony of the report’s author, only if (1) the State’s Attorney serves a copy of the report upon defense counsel; and (2) defense counsel fails to object to the report’s admissibility of prima facie evidence of its contents within seven days of receiving it. If either (1) defense counsel timely objects, or (2) the State fails to serve the report upon defense counsel as section 115 — 15 requires, then the State will have to call the laboratory analyst who wrote the report to testify regarding the report’s contents. I envision a problem arising in a situation where the State moves during trial to admit the laboratory report on the ground that defense counsel had failed to timely object to the report’s use, only to have defense counsel assert that she never received a copy of the report in the first place. To further complicate matters, both the prosecutor and defense counsel might be making their respective claims in good faith because the prosecutor really believes he sent a copy of the laboratory report to defense counsel, while defense counsel really believes that she never received it. Regrettably, discovery problems of this sort arise with some frequency during felony trials. However, what distinguishes this particular discovery issue from the vast majority is that this one directly implicates a constitutional right — namely, the defendant’s right to confront and cross-examine one of the State’s witnesses. I agree that imposing a burden upon defense counsel to affirmatively state her disagreement with a proposed stipulation regarding the admissibility of a laboratory report passes constitutional muster in this case. However, the State should bear a greater burden if a discovery dispute arises concerning whether defense counsel ever received the laboratory report than it might otherwise bear regarding more “normal” discovery disputes. The good news is that the State can easily meet this heightened burden with regard to laboratory reports in either of the following ways. First, the State’s discovery response containing the laboratory report at issue (and, perhaps, other discovery information as well) should be prepared in triplicate, with each of the three original copies then filed marked by the circuit clerk. One of the triplicate originals should remain in the court file, one should remain in the prosecutor’s file, and the third should be provided to defense counsel. Under these circumstances, if defense counsel later claims that she never received a copy of the laboratory report, the trial court could easily resolve this discovery dispute both by looking in the court file and by asking the prosecutor for his copy of the discovery response at issue. If the court finds the laboratory report at issue within each, the inescapable conclusion would be that defense counsel, upon receiving the discovery response from the State, must have unstapled the documents and thereafter simply lost or misplaced the report. The second, but perhaps less efficient, method of providing a record of compliance with section 115 — 15(b) of the Procedure Code is for the prosecutor to make a record of presenting the laboratory report in open court to defense counsel at some pretrial proceeding in the case. The difficulty with this procedure, however, is that in those counties which are able to administer their felony docket efficiently enough to minimize the need for multiple pretrial hearings, a timely opportunity might not present itself for the State to furnish the laboratory report to defense counsel in this fashion. Utilizing one of the suggested methods would be sound practice for the State regarding any discovery information it provides defendant pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 412 (134 Ill. 2d R. 412). If the State fails to comply with either of the foregoing methods, then it should be on notice that it will likely lose any discovery dispute that arises regarding whether defense counsel received notice from the State, as required by section 115 — 15(b) of the Procedure Code.