Reynolds v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 22 November 1974
• Citation: 12 Cal.3d 834,117 Cal.Rptr. 437
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 528 P.2d 45 Robert REYNOLDS, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest. L.A. 30347. In Bank

Page 437

117 Cal.Rptr. 437

12 Cal.3d 834, 528 P.2d 45

Robert REYNOLDS, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Respondent The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

L.A. 30347.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Nov. 22, 1974.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing dec. 26, 1974.

William O. Carlisle, Venice, for petitioner.

Richard S. Buckley, Public Defender, Los Angeles, and Dennis A. Fischer and Harold E. Shabo, Deputy Public Defenders, as amici curiae for petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

Joseph P. Busch, Dist. Atty., Harry B. Sondheim, Jay J. Becker and Arnold T. Guminski, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party in interest.

Byron C. Morton, Dist. Atty., Riverside, and Ronald S. Smith, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., as amici curiae for real party in interest.

WRIGHT, Chief Justice.

Petitioner has been charged by information with the kidnaping, rape, drugging, sexual molestation, and attempted murder of a 10-year-old girl. He is also charged with furnishing drugs to four of his stepdaughters, all minors, and of sexually molesting one of these stepdaughters. Petitioner was held to answer after a lengthy preliminary examination, and following a further hearing pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, respondent superior court denied petitioner's motion to suppress evidence. The superior court thereupon issued a discovery order at the request of the People directing petitioner to give the People at least three days' notice in advance of calling any alibi witness at trial. The order further requires that petitioner disclose the names, addresses and telephone numbers of such witnesses. The People were in turn directed to provide petitioner with evidence they might have or uncover which is impeaching of petitioner's proffered alibi witnesses. The superior court's discovery order further provides for the exclusion at trial of the testimony of any witness or other evidence covered by the order which is not in compliance with the order.

Mindful of the expected two- to three-month length of the trial of petitioner, and of a direct conflict in published opinions of the Courts of Appeal regarding the validity of notice-of-alibi discovery orders, ¹ we stayed petitioner's trial and granted his petition for a hearing in this court, issuing our alternative writ of prohibition. We have determined that the superior court erred in issuing its notice-of-alibi order, and herewith issue our peremptory writ of prohibition restraining the enforcement of that order.

We are of the opinion, in accord with the decision of the Court of Appeal in Rodriguez v. Superior Court (1970) 9 Cal.App.3d 493, 88 Cal.Rptr. 154, that such a procedural innovation as requiring defendants in criminal cases to give advance notice of alibis should be introduced, if at all, only upon the considered judgment of the Legislature. We do not question the validity of our holding in Jones v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 56, 59--60, 22 Cal.Rptr. 879, 372 P.2d 919, that even in the absence of constitutional mandate or enabling legislation this court has inherent power to provide for the orderly administration of justice through judicially declared rules of criminal discovery. However, complex and closely balanced questions of state and federal constitutional law are presented by a notice-of-alibi order. The gravity of these questions counsels against the exercise of our rule-making power so as to promulgate a notice-of-alibi procedure.

We wish to emphasize that we in no way pass herein on the abstract question of the constitutional validity of a court order, whether or not authorized by the Legislature, which compels an accused to give pretrial notice of an alibi defense. Nevertheless, our decision that it would be inappropriate for us to declare judicially a notice-of-alibi rule does arise from our sensitivity to the constitutional constraints on the power of the courts or the Legislature to require a defendant in a criminal case to reveal to the prosecution in advance of the normal course of trial tangible or intangible trial-related evidence or other material. We accordingly undertake to review the constitutional parameters governing compulsory discovery from a defendant in a criminal case.

In Jones v. Superior Court, supra, this court gave its sanction to the principle that discovery, even in a criminal case, 'should not be a one-way street.' (Id., at p. 60, 22 Cal.Rptr. at p. 881, 372 P.2d at p. 921.) Reviewing the line of decisions beginning with People v. Riser (1956) 47 Cal.2d 566, 305 P.2d 1 (overruled on other grounds, People v. Morse (1964) 60 Cal.2d 631, 649, 36 Cal.Rptr. 201, 388 P.2d 33), which permit criminal defendants extensive discovery against the prosecution, ² Justice Traynor concluded for the majority in Jones that these decisions had gone beyond mere effectuation of criminal defendants' constitutional right to a fair trial. In judicially creating rules of criminal discovery, the court 'was not acting under constitutional compulsion but to promote the orderly ascertainment of the truth.' (58 Cal.2d, at p. 60, 22 Cal.Rptr., at p. 881, 372 P.2d at p. 921.)

The court in Jones accordingly announced its willingness to require discovery of defendants as well as the prosecution in criminal cases where such discovery does not conflict with the constitutional rights of the accused. In Jones the accused was charged with rape, and on the day set for trial had successfully moved for a continuance on the ground that he would present a defense of impotence and wished to marshal supporting medical evidence. The trial court granted the prosecution's motion for the discovery of the names and addresses of all medical witnesses who would testify for the defendant and of all doctors who had treated the defendant prior to trial, the reports of these doctors bearing on his claim of impotence, and X-rays of the injuries alleged to have caused his impotency. The Fifth Amendment not yet having been made applicable to the states by Malloy v. Hogan (1964) 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653, the defendant's constitutional attack on the trial court's discovery order was based on the privilege against self-incrimination set forth in article I, section 13, of the California Constitution. The majority in Jones upheld the discovery order against this claim of privilege to the extent that the defendant was ordered to identify and produce in advance of trial those witnesses and the evidence which he intended to produce in any event at the trial itself. ³ In so holding--over the vigorous dissent of Justice Peters--the majority relied on decisions in other states rejecting self-incrimination attacks on notice-of-alibi statutes, quoting with approval a commentator's analysis of such statutes as not infringing on the privilege against self-incrimination: "Rather, they set up a wholly reasonable rule of pleading which in no manner compels a defendant to give any evidence other than that which he will voluntarily and without compulsion give at trial." (58 Cal.2d, at p. 61, 22 Cal.Rptr., at p. 882, 372 P.2d, at p. 922.)

The 'intent to disclose at trial' rationale by which the majority in Jones found a defendant's interest in avoiding self-incrimination to be less significant than the courts' interest in orderly procedures for the ascertainment of truth, later led the court seemingly to approve a pretrial discovery order which was unrelated to any particular 'affirmative' defense such as impotence or alibi and which required revelation of the identities and expected testimony of All defense witnesses. (People v. Pike (1969) 71 Cal.2d 595, 605, 78 Cal.Rptr. 672, 455 P.2d 776.) In Prudhomme v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 320, 85 Cal.Rptr. 129, 466 P.2d 673, the court dealt directly with just such a general pretrial discovery order, overruling Pike in that respect (2 Cal.3d, at p. 327, fn. 11, 85 Cal.Rptr. 129, 466 P.2d 673), and limiting Jones 'virtually to its facts.' (Louisell & Wally, Modern Cal. Discovery (2d ed. 1972) p. 895.) Drawing upon cases of the United States Supreme Court--now directly applicable in the wake of Malloy v. Hogan, supra--and of California courts, the Prudhomme court declared that the privilege against self-incrimination 'forbids compelled disclosures which could serve as a 'link in a chain' of evidence tending to establish guilt of a criminal offense; in ruling upon a claim of privilege, the trial court must find that it clearly appears from a consideration of all the circumstances in the case that an answer to the challenged (request) cannot possibly have a tendency to incriminate the witness.' (2 Cal.3d, at p. 326, 85 Cal.Rptr., at p. 133, 466 P.2d, at p. 677.) Accordingly, the 'principal element' in determining the validity of a discovery order against the defendant in a criminal case 'is not simply whether the information sought pertains to an 'affirmative defense,' (footnote omitted) or whether (the) defendant intends to introduce or rely upon the evidence at trial, but whether disclosure thereof conceivably might lighten the prosecution's burden of proving its case in chief.' (Id.) The Prudhomme court went on to point out that 'It requires no great effort or imagination to conceive of a variety of situations wherein the disclosure of the expected testimony of defense witnesses, Or even their names and addresses, could easily provide an essential link in a chain of evidence underlying the prosecution's case in chief.' (Italics added.) (Id.)

In contrast to the evident concern in Prudhomme over the self-incrimination ramifications of prosecutorial discovery in a criminal case, the United States Supreme Court was little troubled by self-incrimination problems when just three months after Prudhomme it upheld Florida's notice-of-alibi rule in Williams v. Florida (1970) 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446. Noting the then unbroken line of decisions upholding notice-of-alibi procedures (Id., at p. 83, ...