Kennedy v. Superior Court

51 Cal. Rptr. 3d 637, 145 Cal. App. 4th 359, 2006 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 10993, 2006 Daily Journal DAR 15696, 2006 Cal. App. LEXIS 1895
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 30, 2006
DocketC052243
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 51 Cal. Rptr. 3d 637 (Kennedy v. Superior Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kennedy v. Superior Court, 51 Cal. Rptr. 3d 637, 145 Cal. App. 4th 359, 2006 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 10993, 2006 Daily Journal DAR 15696, 2006 Cal. App. LEXIS 1895 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

*363 Opinion

ROBIE, J.

Penal Code 1 section 1054.9 allows persons subject to a sentence of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole to file a motion for postconviction discovery to assist in seeking a writ of habeas corpus or an order vacating the judgment. Such a motion is at issue here. Specifically, petitioner Jerry Noble Kennedy seeks a writ of mandate commanding the trial court to fully grant 35 discovery requests the trial court denied in whole or in part.

We conclude Kennedy is not entitled to the relief he seeks. As we will explain, in seeking a discovery order under section 1054.9, the defendant must persuade the trial court that he is entitled to the materials he is requesting. Section 1054.9 allows discovery of “materials ... to which the . . . defendant would have been entitled at time of trial.” (§ 1054.9, subd. (b).) Thus, the defendant must show the trial court he would have been entitled to the materials he is requesting at time of trial—for example, by showing the materials came within the prosecution’s constitutional or statutory duty to disclose exculpatory evidence.

Likewise, when the trial court denies a defendant’s discovery request under section 1054.9 and the defendant seeks writ relief in the appellate court, the defendant must show the appellate court he would have been entitled to the materials he requested at time of trial. Absent such a showing, the defendant cannot carry his burden of showing the trial court abused its discretion in denying his discovery request.

Here, Kennedy’s request for writ relief fails because, without exception, he has not shown he would have been entitled to the materials he requested at time of trial. Accordingly, we will deny Kennedy’s petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On March 15, 1993, Glenn Chambers was robbed and shot to death in a restroom at a rest stop off Interstate 5 in Colusa County. (People v. Kennedy (2005) 36 Cal.4th 595, 602-603 [31 Cal.Rptr.3d 160, 115 P.3d 472].) Kennedy was arrested for the crimes the next day in Sacramento after authorities traced one of Chambers’s credit cards. (Id. at pp. 603-604.) Ultimately Kennedy was convicted of robbery and murder and sentenced to death. (Id. at p. 602.)

In July 2005, the California Supreme Court affirmed Kennedy’s convictions and sentence. (See People v. Kennedy, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. 642.) In *364 November 2005, Kennedy filed a habeas corpus petition in the California Supreme Court. (In re Kennedy (No. S138625, petn. filed Nov. 4, 2005).) The following month, Kennedy filed a discovery motion pursuant to section 1054.9 2 in Colusa County Superior Court. Kennedy included 58 separate requests in his discovery motion, most of them for broad categories of materials and some of them containing multiple subparts. Kennedy explained that “[t]he discovery requested ... is necessary both because it may yield evidence that could have been introduced at [his] trial, and because it may produce leads that will yield [such] evidence . . . .”

In support of Kennedy’s motion, one of his attorneys attested that his office had obtained and reviewed all of trial counsel’s files, had reviewed discovery obtained from the Colusa County Sheriff’s Department by Kennedy’s prior habeas corpus attorney, and had reviewed files made available by the Colusa County District Attorney and the Colusa County Sheriff’s Department in response to informal discovery requests. Nonetheless, Kennedy’s attorney set forth a number of reasons for believing that “the local and state agencies involved in investigating and prosecuting [the case against Kennedy] may still have [discoverable] records in their possession.”

The People filed their initial response to Kennedy’s discovery motion shortly after the motion was filed. Without addressing most of Kennedy’s specific requests, the People contended the court should deny his motion because Kennedy was “attempting] to use section 1054.9 as a fishing expedition . . . paying] little or no heed to its many limitations.” Among other things, the People argued that: (1) “in a motion pursuant to section 1054.9, a petitioner must make the necessary showing in 1054.5 in order to obtain discovery beyond what was provided at trial”; (2) “in requesting materials pursuant to section 1054.9, a petitioner must show that the requested materials are not in his or her possession”; (3) to be entitled to an order for the production of documents the prosecution was required to disclose at trial, “a petitioner must, in addition to all the other hurdles of section 1054.9, overcome a presumption that the prosecution properly fulfilled its discovery obligations at trial”; and (4) to succeed on a motion under section 1054.9, “a petitioner must establish a good faith basis to believe the materials requested actually exist.”

*365 When they appeared in court on the motion, Kennedy and the People apparently agreed to meet and confer before asking the court to rule. After that meeting, the People filed another response. This time, the People responded separately to each request, contending the motion should be denied “except as indicated.”

The trial court heard the matter again in January 2006 and took it under submission. In March, the court issued its order, granting some of Kennedy’s requests in their original form, granting others with modifications, and denying the remainder.

On March 29, 2006, Kennedy commenced this proceeding by filing a petition for writ of mandate in this court seeking to compel the trial court to grant in full most (but not all) of the various discovery requests the trial court had denied or granted with modifications. We ordered the issuance of an alternative writ of mandate.

DISCUSSION

At issue here is the trial court’s denial, in whole or in part, of 35 different discovery requests. Before addressing those requests, we will address generally Kennedy’s right to discovery under section 1054.9, then we will address two overarching arguments Kennedy makes with respect to the trial court’s ruling on all of his requests.

I

Discovery Under Section 1054.9

Section 1054.9 allows a defendant to seek discovery of materials “to which [he] would have been entitled at time of trial.” (§ 1054.9, subd. (b).) As the Supreme Court explained in In re Steele (2004) 32 Cal.4th 682 [10 Cal.Rptr.3d 536, 85 P.3d 444], while this language is broad enough to make section 1054.9 more than just “a ‘file reconstruction statute,’ ” at the same time the statutory language “does not allow ‘free-floating’ discovery asking for virtually anything the prosecution possesses.” (Steele, at pp. 693, 695.) Instead, section 1054.9 “provide[s] only limited discovery”; specifically, “the statute is limited to materials to which the defendant would have been entitled at the time of trial.” (Steele, at p. 695.)

In

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51 Cal. Rptr. 3d 637, 145 Cal. App. 4th 359, 2006 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 10993, 2006 Daily Journal DAR 15696, 2006 Cal. App. LEXIS 1895, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kennedy-v-superior-court-calctapp-2006.