California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from City of San Jose v. Superior Court, 67 Cal.App.4th 1135, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 624 (Cal. App. 1998):
In this case, counsel's declaration, considered in conjunction with the police report, failed to make a showing of "good cause for the discovery or disclosure sought" under Evidence Code section 1043, subdivision (b)(3) because it did not provide a "specific factual scenario" establishing a "plausible factual foundation" for the three allegations of police misconduct and therefore did not set forth the materiality of "the discovery or disclosure [67 Cal.App.4th 1147] sought" to "the subject matter involved in the pending litigation." (See City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 85-86, 260 Cal.Rptr. 520, 776 P.2d 222; Evid.Code, 1043, subd. (b)(3).) We will consider each of defense counsel's three allegations separately.
Defense counsel first declared that "knowing and voluntary consent to enter was not in fact obtained by the officers." The declaration did not specify whether the officers coerced Taeleifi into consenting (and if so, what means of coercion the police employed), or whether the officers simply failed to obtain Taeleifi's consent. The police report sheds no further light on this issue. The only relevant statements in the police report were "Taeleifi gave us permission to look around the house for the suspect" and "Taeleifi gave us permission to look around the house for anything that might indicate [defendant's] whereabouts." Without a "specific factual scenario" establishing a "plausible factual foundation" for the allegations of police misconduct, the trial court could not properly determine whether the "discovery or disclosure sought" was material to "the subject matter involved in the pending litigation." (See City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 85-86, 260 Cal.Rptr. 520, 776 P.2d 222; Evid.Code, 1043, subd. (b)(3).)
Defense counsel's second allegation was that "material misrepresentations in the police report and/or in court testimony were made in order to conceal" the fact that "knowing and voluntary consent to enter was not in fact obtained by the officers." Again, the declaration failed to provide a "specific factual scenario" establishing a "plausible factual foundation" for this allegation. (City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 85-86, 260 Cal.Rptr. 520, 776 P.2d 222.) Defendant did not specify which particular statement or statements in the
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Defense counsel's third allegation was that "evidence disclosed during that search was mishandled by the officers to such an extent as to deny [defendant] a fair trial." As with the previous two allegations, defendant's motion did not provide a "specific factual scenario" establishing a "plausible factual foundation" for this assertion. (City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal Court, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 85-86, 260 Cal.Rptr. 520, 776 P.2d 222.) The police report stated that the officers took as evidence the jacket in which they discovered the gun, the gun itself, the bullets, a phone bill, and defendant's driver's license, and that the seized evidence was booked at "central supply." Defendant not only failed to specify which item or items of evidence were mishandled but also failed to specify how the evidence was mishandled. The declaration did not assert that booking evidence at central supply was an improper procedure, or that the evidence was not in fact booked at central supply, or that the evidence was mishandled in some other respect.
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