Engstrom v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 23 September 1971
• Citation: 20 Cal.App.3d 240,97 Cal.Rptr. 484
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Glenn ENGSTROM, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, Respondents; PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party In Interest. Civ. 29821.

Page 484

97 Cal.Rptr. 484

20 Cal.App.3d 240

Glenn ENGSTROM, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF ALAMEDA, Respondents;

PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party In Interest.

Civ. 29821.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Sept. 23, 1971.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 15. 1971.

Hearing Denied Nov. 18, 1971.

James C. Hooley, Public Defender of the County of Alameda, Gary M. Sirbu, Asst. Public Defender, Oakland, for petitioner.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., State of California, Gloria F. DeHart, Charles R. B. Kirk, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for real party in interest.

CHRISTIAN, Associate Justice.

Petitioner Glenn Engstrom seeks mandate to compel respondent, the Alameda County Superior Court, to grant discovery. Petitioner is charged with murder of Faustin Feehan and felonious assault on Reginald Rassette and Brent Bauer. In an affidavit in support of a discovery motion, petitioner's attorney represented that at the preliminary hearing and in pretrial statements to the police, prosecution witnesses stated that petitioner had come to the home of Anna Coehlo, and that while there he got into an argument with the deceased. During an ensuing scuffle a gun was seen in petitioner's hand; petitioner assertedly shot the deceased and then fired several more shots, injuring Rassette and Bauer. Several persons in the room then disarmed petitioner, who jumped out the window and escaped. According to the affidavit, petitioner will raise the defense of self-defense. His version of the incident, as told to the police, was that he had been living with Anna Coehlo; after the relationship broke up, Miss Coehlo was hostile and bitter toward petitioner. She called him and asked him to remove his personal belongings from her home; when he arrived he was attacked by the deceased and several other persons. 'Someone' produced a gun and began hitting petitioner with it. Petitioner grabbed the weapon, and it discharged three times.

By means of the discovery motion, petitioner sought the following information:

1. The felony conviction, detention and arrest records of the victims 'which relate to any act or attempted act of violent or assaultive conduct' to prove that the victims initiated the attack.

2. The felony conviction records of prosecution witnesses (named in the motion) to impeach their credibility.

3. Portions of the detention, arrest and/or conviction records of the witnesses which relate to acts or attempted acts of violence 'to prove that said witnesses conspired to and did initiate the chain of events which led to the alleged offenses when they attacked defendant, * * *.'

4. 'Any police reports, memoranda, or other information in the actual or constructive possession of or available to the District Attorney of the County of Alameda' which relate to acts or attempted acts of violence by any of the victims or witnesses to prove that the victims and witnesses conspired to and did initiate the attack. The motion was denied by the trial court.

The issue before us is not whether the district attorney should be required to disclose relevant materials in his possession; that obligation is conceded (see Giles v. Maryland (1967) 386 U.S. 66, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737; Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215; People v. Cooper (1960) 53 Cal.2d 755, 769--770, 3 Cal.Rptr. 148, 349 P.2d 964). The People do contend that the prosecutor should not be required to obtain for the defense records of felony convictions or prior assault arrests of the victims or nonvictim witnesses where such information, although available to the prosecutor, is not actually in his possession.

The theory behind criminal discovery was stated in People v. Riser (1956) 47 Cal.2d 566, 586, 305 P.2d 1, 13. 'Absent some governmental requirement that information be kept confidential for the purposes of effective law enforcement, the state has no interest in denying the accused access to all evidence that can throw light on issues in the case, and in particular it has no interest in convicting on the testimony of witnesses who have not been as rigorously cross-examined and as thoroughly impeached as the evidence permits.' The same policy applies to information not in the prosecutor's possession but available at his request from other agencies which are parts of the criminal justice system.

We have concluded that the court should require the prosecution to make diligent good faith efforts to obtain and make available to the defense pertinent information in the possession of other agencies which are parts of the criminal justice system. It has already been held that a trial court may, in its discretion, order a prosecuting witness in a rape case to submit to a psychiatric examination (Ballard v. Superior Court (1966) 64 Cal.2d 159, 176--177, 49 Cal.Rptr. 302, 410 P.2d 838) or order that a body be made available to defense experts for examination (People v. Vick (1970) 11 Cal.App.3d 1058, 1066, 90 Cal.Rptr. 236). Thus criminal discovery is flexible and not necessarily limited to documents or physical evidence in the hands of the prosecutor. In the present case, part of the information requested by petitioner relates to criminal records potentially admissible for purposes of impeachment. The information was therefore discoverable. (In re Ferguson (1971) Cal., 96 Cal.Rptr. 594, 487 P.2d 1234.) ¹

The Attorney General argues that conviction records are kept by the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation of the Department of Justice, and the district attorney has no duty to obtain these records for the defendant. Penal Code section 11105 ² does not authorize the bureau to provide records directly to private individuals; but there is no prohibition against giving an accused person access to information pertinent to his defense.

Unless criminal conviction records of prosecution witnesses are made available to the defense, the defendant would be at a great disadvantage. The prosecution has access to such records to impeach defense witnesses, but the defendant would not have equal access to criminal records. The effort required by the prosecution to obtain conviction records from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation is minimal compared with the potential value of such records to the defense....