State v. Harrison

• Decision Date: 21 October 2008
• Docket Number: No. W2006-00483-SC-R11-CD.,W2006-00483-SC-R11-CD.
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee v. Robert Jonathan HARRISON.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

270 S.W.3d 21

STATE of Tennessee v. Robert Jonathan HARRISON.

No. W2006-00483-SC-R11-CD.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Jackson.

April 1, 2008 Session.

October 21, 2008.

Kandi Kelley, Assistant Public Defender (on appeal); and George Morton Googe, District Public Defender, and Joseph T. Howell, Assistant Public Defender (at trial), Jackson, Tennessee, for the appellant, Robert Jonathan Harrison.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Rachel E. Willis, Assistant Attorney General (on appeal); and James G. Woodall, District Attorney General, and Jody S. Pickens, Assistant District Attorney General (at trial), Jackson, Tennessee, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which, JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J., WILLIAM M. BARKER, CORNELIA A. CLARK, and GARY R. WADE, JJ., joined.

OPINION

This appeal involves the procedure for discovering the records of a clinical psychologist whom the defendant intends to call as an expert witness at a pretrial competency hearing in a criminal case. After the defendant filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Chester County requesting to be declared incompetent to stand trial, the State obtained a judicial subpoena under Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123 (2006) directing the defendant's psychologist to produce "[a]ny and all records" related to his examination of the defendant. The trial court declined to quash the subpoena but granted the defendant an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The intermediate appellate court held that the trial court erred by issuing a subpoena under Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123 but, characterizing the competency hearing as "in the nature of a civil proceeding," ordered the production of the materials sought in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02. State v. Harrison, No. W2006-00483-CCA-R9-CD, 2007 WL 906730, at *4 (Tenn.Crim.App. Mar. 2, 2007). We granted the defendant's application for permission to appeal to address the application of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02 to pretrial competency hearings in criminal cases. We concur with the Court of Criminal Appeals' conclusions that the trial court erred by granting the judicial subpoena and that the State is entitled to discover the report of the expert testifying for the defendant in the competency hearing. However, we have also determined that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02 does not apply to pretrial competency hearings in criminal cases. Exercising our inherent supervisory authority over Tennessee's judicial system, we adopt a temporary procedure for the disclosure and use of evidence relating to competency to stand trial in criminal cases.

I.

In June 2005, a grand jury in Chester County indicted Robert Jonathan Harrison on three counts of rape, one count of rape of a child, one count of attempt to commit rape, and one count of incest. Several months later, in August 2005, Mr. Harrison filed a standard motion for discovery from the State under Tenn. R.Crim. P. 16(a). After providing the requested discovery, the State requested reciprocal disclosure from Mr. Harrison under Tenn. R.Crim. P. 16(b).

Mr. Harrison's lawyer requested a forensic psychological examination for his client in accordance with Tenn.Code Ann. § 33-7-301(a)(1) (2007). A report of this examination, filed with the trial court on December 19, 2005, concluded that Mr. Harrison was competent to stand trial and that "a defense of insanity cannot be supported." Following the receipt of this report, Mr. Harrison's lawyer obtained funding for the services of Dr. Dennis Wilson, a private clinical psychologist practicing in Jackson, Tennessee.¹

On January 11, 2006, Mr. Harrison filed a petition requesting the trial court to declare him incompetent to stand trial. Attached to his petition was a summary report of Dr. Wilson's evaluation and conclusions dated January 5, 2006. While Dr. Wilson agreed that his examination would not support an insanity defense, he concluded that Mr. Harrison was not competent to stand trial because he did not understand the functions of the prosecuting attorney, the judge, or the jury. He also concluded that Mr. Harrison appeared to be "marginally capable of assisting his attorney in his own defense."

On February 3, 2006, the State obtained a judicial subpoena in accordance with Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123 (2006), directing Dr. Wilson to produce "[a]ny and all records" retained by him related to his psychological evaluation of Mr. Harrison. On February 9, 2006, Mr. Harrison, joined later by Dr. Wilson, moved to quash the subpoena. The trial court denied the motion to quash on February 27, 2006 and, on March 6, 2006, entered an order granting Mr. Harrison permission to seek an interlocutory appeal. The court also directed that Dr. Wilson's records be placed under seal pending the resolution of the interlocutory appeal.

On April 24, 2006, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted Mr. Harrison permission to appeal. Before the Court of Criminal Appeals, Mr. Harrison argued (1) that judicial subpoenas under Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123 were not intended to enable the State to compel the production of the confidential records of an expert retained by the defense in a criminal case and (2) that the reciprocal discovery requirements in Tenn. R.Crim. P. 16(b) did not require the production of Dr. Wilson's records because he did not intend to call Dr. Wilson as a witness at trial or to rely on Dr. Wilson's records as evidence in his case-in-chief at trial. The State responded that the trial court properly granted the subpoena and that Mr. Harrison lacked standing to contest it.

The Court of Criminal Appeals filed its opinion on March 2, 2007. State v. Harrison, No. W2006-00483-CCA-R9-CD, 2007 WL 906730, at *1 (Tenn.Crim.App. Mar. 2, 2007). The court did not address the State's assertion that Mr. Harrison lacked standing to quash the judicial subpoena. However, it found that the State was not authorized to obtain a judicial subpoena because neither a district attorney general nor an assistant district attorney general is a "law enforcement officer" within the meaning of Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123(a). State v. Harrison, 2007 WL 906730, at *3.

Even though the Court of Criminal Appeals had decided the only issue presented on the interlocutory appeal — the application of judicial subpoenas under Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-17-123 to competency proceedings like this one — the court proceeded, on its own and without further briefing from the parties, to fashion a discovery procedure applicable to proceedings regarding the competency of a defendant in a criminal case to stand trial. Based on its belief that a proceeding to determine competency to stand trial was "in the nature of a civil proceeding," the Court of Criminal Appeals patterned its discovery procedure after Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02. State v. Harrison, 2007 WL 906730, at *4. We granted Mr. Harrison's application for permission to appeal to address the application of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02 to proceedings to establish a defendant's competency to stand trial in a criminal case.

II.

As a preliminary matter, the State asserts that Mr. Harrison lacks standing to challenge the judicial subpoena issued to Dr. Wilson and that both the trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals erred by granting Mr. Harrison's Tenn. R.App. P. 9 application for permission to appeal. We find little merit in either claim.

A.

The State's standing argument is a very narrow, literal one. It is based on Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-17-123(k) which entitles "person[s] to whom a subpoena is directed" to move to quash or to limit a judicial subpoena by showing that compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive. The State asserts that Mr. Harrison does not have standing to challenge the subpoena because he was not the one to whom the subpoena was directed. That person was Dr. Wilson.

The State did not question Mr. Harrison's standing to challenge the judicial subpoena in the proceedings before the trial court. The trial court raised this question on its own motion during the February 24, 2006 hearing and based its decision to deny the motion to quash, at least in part, on the fact that the subpoena had not been directed to Mr. Harrison. On March 8, 2006, Dr. Wilson, acting on his own behalf, filed a document entitled "Notice of Adoption" in the trial court stating that "he hereby joins and adopts in the Motion to Quash the Judicial Subpoena filed by Robert Jonathan Harrison, on February 9, 2006."² Unfortunately, despite the fact that the issue of Mr. Harrison's standing to challenge the subpoena was squarely raised in the State's brief, the Court of Criminal Appeals did not address the issue in its opinion.

It would, of course, have been better practice for Mr. Harrison to have joined Dr. Wilson in his motion to quash the judicial subpoena. Despite this anomaly, the record is sufficiently complete to enable us to address the standing issue.

The doctrine of standing is used to determine whether a particular plaintiff is entitled to judicial relief. Knierim v. Leatherwood, 542 S.W.2d 806, 808 (Tenn. 1976). It is the principle that courts use to determine whether a party has a sufficiently personal stake in a matter at issue to warrant a judicial resolution of the dispute. SunTrust Bank, Nashville v. Johnson, 46 S.W.3d 216, 222 (Tenn.Ct.App. 2000). Persons whose rights or interests have not been affected have no standing and are, therefore, not entitled to judicial relief. Lynch v. City of Jellico, 205 S.W.3d 384, 395 (Tenn.2006).

"The sort of distinct and palpable injury that will create standing must be an injury to a recognized legal right or interest." Wood v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville and Davidson County, 196 S.W.3d 152, 158 (Tenn.Ct.App.2005). Such a legal right or interest may, but not must, be created or defined by statute. "[I]n cases where a party is seeking to vindicate a statutory right of interest,...