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State v. Diprete5/1/1998
ith prejudice. It is important to note that the state agreed to the entry of this conditional order. The order was entered on November 30, 1982, setting January 24, 1983, as the deadline for compliance. Id. at 118.
The state failed to provide the materials ordered within the time limited by the conditional order. The Superior Court Justice granted a motion to dismiss on January 26, 1983. Thereafter the state moved to vacate the order of dismissal. Id. at 118. The motion to vacate was denied. Id. at 119. This Court upheld the denial to vacate the dismissal. In so doing, we stated that " bsent enforcement of such self-executing orders, 'the sanctions would have no meaning, and parties would be allowed to ignore the discovery rules and orders issued pursuant to them.'" Id. at 120 (quoting State v. DiPrete, 468 A.2d 262, 265 (R.I. 1983)).
The trial Justice in the case at bar relied heavily upon State v. Quintal in determining that he had the authority to dismiss twenty-two counts of the subject indictment. With this interpretation we must respectfully disagree. We believe that State v. Quintal cannot be extended beyond the particular facts upon which it was based. In that case the conditional order of dismissal, to which the state agreed, requiring the production of certain defined and discrete materials was, as we suggested, self-executing. Quintal, 479 A.2d at 120. The state's failure to comply with such an order could have but one result, namely, the implementation of the condition of the order, entry of final judgment.
In the case at bar we accept the trial Justice's findings that the state failed to comply with the discovery order that required disclosure of the state's knowledge of criminal conduct engaged in by its principal witnesses, Brusini, Zaino, Piccoli, and Santos, until the furnishing of the thirty boxes of material on July 29, 1996. We further accept the trial Justice's finding that the state was not completely forthcoming in detailing its agreements not to prosecute Brusini, Zaino, Piccoli, and Santos for various criminal activities until the material was provided on July 29, 1996. We are also mindful that additional discovery was provided during the thirty-two-day hearing on the motion for sanctions. We also take into account the fact that the trial Justice authorized subpoenas purportedly pursuant to Rule 17(c) of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure. These subpoenas, as disclosed in subsequent depositions, enabled counsel for defendants to obtain significant additional information, some of which may not have been known to the state.
Consequently, prior to the Conclusion of the sanction hearings, counsel for defendants had all the information that they had requested in their supplemental motions for discovery that had been granted on August 24, 1995. In this posture the trial Justice was constrained in determining sanctions to consider the four-part test set forth in State v. Coelho. Without question he determined that the failure of complete discovery was deliberate. He then considered whether a continuance would be sufficient to cure the discovery violations and found that it was not. He also considered whether there had been prejudice to defendants and the feasibility of rectifying that prejudice by continuance. We recognize that in the context of the granting of a new trial, the Coelho doctrine does not require that prejudice be shown when nondisclosure by the prosecutor is deliberate. See State v. Garcia, 643 A.2d 180, 187 (R.I. 1994); Wyche, 518 A.2d at 911. Coelho and the cases in interpretation thereof, however, do not address the criteria for dismissal of an indictment. The sole prejudice specifically found by the trial Justice was that t
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