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State v. Diprete5/1/1998
ad lied to both defense counsel and the court in an attempt to conceal their improper conduct with those witnesses.
I find significant, particularly in light of the Rule 16(i) discovery violation sanction concerned in this appeal, the trial Justice's clear and explicit review of the extent and duration of the egregious prosecutorial misconduct that was unearthed and exposed at the sanction hearing and his Conclusion therefrom that defendants had been substantively prejudiced by that flagrant prosecutorial misconduct. That Conclusion was reached following diligent adherence to the sanction imposition guidelines set out by this Court in State v. Coelho, 454 A.2d 241, 244-45 (R.I. 1982).
In Coelho this Court noted that a trial Justice, when determining the appropriate remedy for a violation of Rule 16, must consider "(1) the reason for nondisclosure, (2) the extent of prejudice to the opposing party, (3) the feasibility of rectifying that prejudice by a continuance, and (4) any other relevant factors." Id. at 245. In this case the trial Justice diligently considered each of these factors and carefully reviewed all of the contradictory reasons put forth by the state's prosecutors for both their failure to disclose the requisite exculpatory materials and their continued denial of any wrongdoing on their own part. The trial Justice considered, noted, and outlined in detail the nature and extent of the prejudice caused to the defendants by the gravity and the duration of the prosecutors' misconduct and concluded that neither a mere trial continuance nor the exclusion of the four key state's witnesses' testimony would serve as an adequate remedy. After painstaking consideration of the hearing evidence and the case travel, the trial Justice exercised his discretion and determined that the only appropriate Rule 16(i) sanction that could fairly serve to remedy the prosecutors' misconduct and the resulting prejudice to the defendants was case dismissal. That was clearly his discretionary judgment call to make, and while the majority may disagree with that choice of sanction, mere disagreement can not translate itself into a holding that the trial Justice clearly abused his discretion. This Court should not second guess the trial Justice on what is a discretionary judgment call simply because the majority might have made a different call. Unless this Court can say that the trial Justice clearly abused his discretion, we should not disturb his action.
The case dismissal sanction chosen by the trial Justice was selected by him only after he had meticulously complied with every directive that we have made applicable to imposition of Rule 16(i) sanctions. As Coelho instructed, the trial Justice considered what was "right and equitable under all of the circumstances and the law." Initially he addressed what would be right and equitable under all of the factual circumstances disclosed from the case record and the recently concluded thirty-two day sanction motion hearing.
The hearing evidence disclosed and presented to him a fact scenario that clearly demonstrated a heretofore unparalleled prosecutorial ferocity that appeared unwaveringly hellbent on securing a conviction in a high-profile criminal prosecution reeking of political ramification. That uncontrolled zealousness and prosecutorial misconduct was especially disturbing to the trial Justice because it surfaced in the offices of the state's Attorney General, the very office entrusted with protecting the constitutional rights of the citizens of this state. As justice Sutherland eloquently noted in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935), the prosecutor
"is the representative not of an o
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Rhode Island Personal Injury Attorneys
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