Court Opinion

ID: 9522878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:33:17.363571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:12.342308
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
Appellant Arnold Mauricio pursuant to the alibi statute filed his notice of alibi, and in obedience to a pre-trial discovery procured by the prosecution from the trial court provided the prosecution with the names of his alibi witnesses. After the alibi notice was filed, the prosecution responded on July 20, 1982, to a motion of appellant Arnold Mauricio for a formal written discovery response, by filing a witness list which did not include its alibi rebuttal witness Sharon McDonald. When defense counsel for Arnold Mauricio on the basis of that omission objected to her testimony, moved to strike it, and requested a mistrial, the trial prosecutor stated on the record in response that his “first conversation with her [Sharon McDonald] was on June 29th at 7:00 P.M_” and that “I took the position when I responded [on July 20] in writing, they have no right to know my rebuttal witnesses.” Her omission from the list and the failure to disclose her before she was called to the witness stand were obviously intentional, and done in the *95belief that there was no legal requirement upon the prosecution to divulge her intended use as a witness. In this the prosecution was wrong.
In Wardius v. Oregon (1973), 412 U.S. 470, 93 S.Ct. 2208, 37 L.Ed.2d 82, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause requires that in a criminal case, the accused be afforded full reciprocal discovery rights when it said: “.. we .. hold that in the absence of a strong showing of state interests to the contrary, discovery must be a two-way street. The State may not insist that trials be run as a “search for truth” so far as defense witnesses are concerned, while maintaining “poker game” secrecy for its own witnesses. It is fundamentally unfair to require a defendant to divulge the details of his own case while at the same time subjecting him to the hazard of surprise concerning refutation of the very pieces of evidence which he disclosed to the State.” Here, the prosecution did not inform appellant that it intended to use Sharon McDonald as a witness to refute the alibi defense, after it had procured through discovery the names of the witnesses the defense intended to use to support the alibi defense. The plan to use Sharon McDonald was formed two days after appellant filed his notice of alibi when the trial prosecutor first spoke with her by telephone, and commenced plans to bring her to Ft. Wayne from California for the trial which was then set for September. On November 16, 1982, as trial commenced, Sharon McDonald, unknown to the defense,* was en route from California to Ft. Wayne under those arrangements. In true “poker game” fashion she was dealt to the defense as a rebuttal witness on November 19, 1982. This maneuver of the prosecution denied reciprocal discovery rights to appellant. Knowledge of the prosecution’s plan would have aided appellant in designing his defense, and that impingement could not be remedied by a continuance. This maneuver of the prosecution warrants a new trial for appellant Arnold Mauricio.
The grant of a new trial here is not foreclosed by our prior cases which have held that rebuttal witnesses need not have been disclosed by the prosecution, even in the alibi situation. Chatman v. State (1975), 263 Ind. 531, 334 N.E.2d 673. Tillman v. State (1980) 274 Ind. 39, 408 N.E.2d 1250. Smith v. State (1982), Ind., 439 N.E.2d 634, Reid v. State (1978) 267 Ind. 555, 372 N.E.2d 1149. In none of those cases was the scope of defense discovery so clearly beneath the level required by due process of law and the reciprocity measure that due process utilizes.
PRENTICE, J., concurs.