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State v. Diprete5/1/1998
l criminal conduct of the unindicted coconspirators, including not only criminal convictions or pending criminal charges but also information on any known criminal conduct, whether or not that conduct had been the subject of a criminal charge; and any other information relating to a coconspirator's credibility as a witness such as prior inconsistent statements, admissions of a poor memory, or evidence of bias on the part of the witness."
The court further ordered the state to produce similar materials in respect to any prospective witness as well as "any transcripts of grand-jury testimony by the witness that was being withheld; and all notes of interviews with prospective witnesses taken by any agent of the state in the course of the investigation." The court ordered the notes to be produced for an in-camera review so that information relevant to ongoing investigations or otherwise privileged could be redacted. Although some of these requirements might arguably call for the disclosure of mental impressions, opinions, or Conclusions on the part of counsel for the state, the orders were not appealed and therefore became the law of the case.
On November 10, 1995, defendants pressed a motion for exculpatory evidence presumably pursuant to the Brady doctrine. At that point counsel for the state asserted that the information required to be produced in the August 24, 1995 orders had been provided to the extent available. The state referred to previously produced immunity petitions and letters of non-prosecution. The trial Justice later determined that these materials were inadequate to meet the full thrust of the discovery order.
At about that time the trial Justice dismissed from the indictment all extortion-related charges. This order was appealed and subsequently reversed. State v. DiPrete, 682 A.2d 1373 (R.I. 1996). Consequently a trial that was scheduled for May 13, 1996, in regard to the remaining counts was delayed. This ruling has no relevance to the instant appeal. It was merely referred to by the trial Justice in his relation of the travel of the case.
On July 25, 1996, in the course of a conference call among attorneys for the state, attorneys for defendants, and the court, reference was made to certain materials that had not been disclosed by the state because of a claim of privilege. The trial Justice then verbally ordered the state to produce all such materials for in-camera review by the court. In response to this order counsel for the state, as an alternative to producing documents for in-camera review, offered to allow defense counsel to review all the materials in the state's possession. This offer was accepted, and on July 29, 1996, representatives of the Attorney General's office produced thirty boxes of materials containing approximately 68,000 pages of documents that had previously been withheld by the state and which contained exculpatory evidence. The trial Justice found in his decision that knowledge of the exculpatory evidence contained in the thirty boxes had been earlier denied by the prosecutors. He further found that the state had argued that there was nothing in the thirty boxes that defendants did not already have in some form or another.
Defense counsel examined the contents of the thirty boxes, which included, according to the state, preparatory notes of witnesses who had been interviewed in preparation for the trial scheduled for May 1996, which trial did not take place. Thereafter the state filed a supplemental response to defendants' motion for exculpatory evidence in which it set forth knowledge of criminal conduct (perjury) on the part of Rodney Brusini that had come to light subsequent to his testimony in March 1992 before
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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