State v. Crawford

• Decision Date: 26 January 1972
• Docket Number: No. 41043,41043
• Citation: 257 So.2d 898
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Willie James CRAWFORD, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 898

257 So.2d 898

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Willie James CRAWFORD, Respondent.

No. 41043.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Jan. 26, 1972.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Raymond L. Marky, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.

Louis O. Frost, Jr., Public Defender and Bartley K. Vickers, Asst. Public Defender, for respondent.

ADKINS, Justice.

By petition for certiorari, we have for review a decision of the District Court of Appeal, First District (State v. Crawford, Fla.App., 245 So.2d 893), which allegedly conflicts with a prior decision of this Court (Anderson v. State, Fla., 241 So.2d 390), and a prior decision of the District Court of Appeal, Second District (State v. Gillespie, Fla.App., 227 So.2d 550), on the same point of law. Fla.Const. art. V, § 4, F.S.A.

The respondent's request for oral argument is denied. See Florida Appellate Rule 3.10(e), 32 F.S.A.

Respondent, defendant below, charged with the crime of murder in the first degree, filed a 'Motion for Statement of Particulars, Production of Confessions or Statements and to Compel the Disclosure of All Evidence to the Defendant.' Among other things, he requested

'. . . the criminal records, F.B.I. records, or any list or summary reflecting the criminal records, Of all persons the State of Florida intends to call at trial'

and

'. . . the police records and F.B.I. records of the defendant and the victim in this cause.'

The trial court granted these portions of the motion. On petition for rehearing, the State alleged that it did not have in its possession the material mentioned or referred to and contended that it would be unreasonable to impose upon the State the duty to obtain and produce such records for the defendant. The petition for rehearing was denied.

Pursuant to Fla.Stat. § 924.07(8), F.S.A., the State filed a notice of appeal seeking a review of this order. Upon appeal the order of the trial judge was affirmed and this petition for writ of certiorari resulted.

In State v. Gillespie, Supra, the Court said:

'At the outset, we observe that pretrial 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, but the aspect of compelled prosecution cooperation has furnished the arena for respected differences of opinion and for much of the apparent confusion. . . . the underlying principle supporting the whole idea of criminal pretrial discovery, as gleaned from the cases and well-reasoned commentaries, 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.' (227 So.2d p. 553)

'We conclude from the foregoing therefore, that any mandate deducible from the federal decisions on the question of what the prosecution is required to disclose to an accused in a criminal case, concerns itself in the first instance only with those matters of which the accused cannot, by reasonable diligence, otherwise avail himself. Whatever effect such mandate may have had on the courts of Florida prior to the effective date of the Criminal Rules of Procedure need not be considered here. But insofar as it would exert any discipline on our criminal proceedings since the adoption of those rules, we are talking about a very narrow class of cases; that is to say, our courts need only be now concerned with those cases in which the evidence sought to be discovered cannot otherwise be discovered under the rules. By taking copious and diligent advantage of these rules a defendant in a criminal case in Florida can now avail himself of everything reasonably relevant and material to the case save Grand Jury proceedings (which we will discuss later), and that class of evidence, contemplated by Brady, (Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963)) which the prosecution would knowingly intentionally suppress.' (227 So.2d p. 555)

Further, in Anderson v. State, Supra, this Court said:

'In State v. Gillespie, 227 So.2d 550 (Fla.App.2d, 1969), the Court noted that under the decisions in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1968), and Williams v. Dutton, 400 F.2d 797 (5th Cir., 1968), denial of timely discovery of evidence 'favorable' to the accused which is otherwise unavailable to him may affect the fairness of the trial to such an extent that due process is denied. The Court then discussed what was meant by 'favorable evidence' as used in the Brady case. It said:

"The bounds of this responsibility are difficult to accurately proscribe, but the best guidelines we have found were laid down by the Maryland court in State v. Giles (239 Md. 458, 212 A.2d 101 (1965)), and were subsequently cited with approval by Mr. Justice Brennan in Giles v. Maryland (386 U.S. 66, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737 (1967)):

"'As we see it, ...