State v. Gillespie

227 So. 2d 550
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedOctober 31, 1969
Docket69-243
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 227 So. 2d 550 (State v. Gillespie) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gillespie, 227 So. 2d 550 (Fla. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

227 So.2d 550 (1969)

STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
William Belmont GILLESPIE, Respondent.

No. 69-243.

District Court of Appeal of Florida. Second District.

October 31, 1969.

*552 Joseph G. Spicola, Jr., State's Attorney, and John S. Burton, Asst. State's Atty., Tampa, for petitioner.

Peter J.T. Taylor, of Goldburg, Putney, Taylor & Hampton, Tampa, for respondent.

McNULTY, Judge.

The State of Florida petitions for common law certiorari to review an order of the trial court compelling a pre-trial in camera inspection of "* * * all records, files and evidence including Grand Jury testimony relative to the case of the State of Florida v. William Belmont Gillespie, * * *". This case is pending under an indictment charging the defendant Gillespie with murder in the first degree. In entering the order under review the trial judge specifically found that he was required to make such in camera inspection on the authority of Williams v. Dutton.[1]

Respondent initially suggests that common law certiorari is inappropriate at this stage of the proceedings. We disagree. This court has consistently entertained certiorari in this type case when the order sought to be reviewed is shown to be, at least prima facie, a substantial departure from the essential requirements of law, or when the state is at the peril of prejudice.[2] We again do so now.

The motion of the respondent Gillespie, made in the criminal proceedings herein and upon which the trial judge entered the order under review, did not pray for an in camera inspection, but rather prayed, without a predicate or a showing of cause, for an order compelling the state to disclose or produce for inspection and copying by the respondent-defendant "all evidence in the possession and control of the [s]tate * * * [which] * * * may be favorable to defendant * * * or [which] could reasonably weaken or affect any evidence proposed to be introduced against defendant, * * * without regard to whether such evidence * * * is * * * admissible at the trial * * *". The motion then listed eleven non-specific items of "evidence" which were to be included in the information sought to be disclosed. These items ran the entire gamut of investigatory weaponry from generally described items of purest work product of the prosecution (e.g., unidentified "memoranda or summaries" which were or may have been prepared or used by investigating officers) to the judicial inquisitorial processes of the Grand Jury investigation. The trial judge did not grant the relief prayed for in the motion but instead, as noted, ordered a blanket, all-encompassing in camera inspection believing it to be compelled by Williams v. Dutton, supra.

*553 Ever since Brady v. Maryland,[3] and through the cases which followed,[4] the problems inherent in pre-trial discovery in criminal cases have been made apparent with accelerating frequency; and there has been we sense, considerable resulting confusion. We think this case affords an opportunity to review the entire picture of such discovery in some depth, and to bring some of the areas of confusion into clearer focus within their proper perspective.

At the outset, we observe that pre-trial discovery in criminal cases in its broad sense is one thing, and the extent to which the prosecution may be compelled to cooperate therein is quite another. In this era of enlightened jurisprudence, the overall concept of discovery has generally been met with approval,[5] but the aspect of compelled prosecution cooperation has furnished the arena for respected differences of opinion and for much of the apparent confusion. Accordingly, it is this latter aspect of pre-trial discovery to which we will essentially address our concern herein; that is to say, the extent to which the prosecution may be compelled to cooperate in the pre-trial discovery efforts of a defendant in a criminal case.

I

A.

In the first place we observe that neither Brady nor any other authority cited or known to this court, has suggested that the adversary nature of criminal proceedings has been abrogated. The adversary system is still the core of our Anglo-American concept of the truth-finding process;[6] and constitutional concern demands only that such process be fair. We find, therefore, that the underlying principle supporting the whole idea of criminal pre-trial discovery, as gleaned from the cases[7] and well-reasoned commentaries,[8] is fairness. But no intelligent concept of fairness has ever been advanced which would require one side of a judicial controversy to prepare the case for his adversary, or to furnish such adversary with evidence favorable to him when such evidence is otherwise reasonably available; and the unique aspects of the criminal law do not require that such a concept should be any more appropriate in a criminal case than in any other.

Furthermore, none of the cases as we read them is authority for claiming a constitutional right to pre-trial discovery of evidence in the hands of the prosecution.[9] They merely hold, and we would agree, that denial of timely discovery from the prosecution of otherwise unascertainable evidence favorable to the accused, may affect the fairness of the trial itself to such a degree that one convicted at such trial would be denied due process. But it must be remembered that it is after the trial that the proceedings are scrutinized *554 and measured against the standards of fairness; and any infringement of a claimed right of an accused prior to trial, as far as the criminal proceedings are concerned, is merely in the nature of an "inchoate" injury which does not ripen into a fatal departure from constitutional safeguards until it leads, or materially contributes, to a conviction at trial. The situation is akin, it may be said, to one yelling "Ouch!", before he's hurt. We reaffirm first then, that an accused has no constitutional right to pre-trial discovery.

B.

Secondly, we note that in all the cases from which pre-trial discovery has evolved, it appears that the prosecution took unfair advantage of the accused by either knowingly presenting false or illegally obtained evidence against him in some manner, and without disclosure thereof, or by unfairly suppressing exculpatory or favorable evidence.[10] Therefore, common to all these cases is the fact that the evidence in question was otherwise unavailable to the accused.

In Brady for instance, a murder case, the defendant had requested copies of all extra-judicial statements given to the prosecution by his codefendant. Several of such statements were in fact shown to him, but the prosecution withheld one of the codefendant's statements in which the codefendant admitted to the actual homicide. Brady did not, and could not, find out about this until after his conviction and sentence to death had been affirmed on appeal. In a post-conviction relief procedure, the Maryland Court of Appeals granted a new trial on the question of punishment only, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed saying:

"We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of prosecution * * *".

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Bluebook (online)
227 So. 2d 550, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gillespie-fladistctapp-1969.