Is a police officer required to preserve rough interview notes taken by investigating officers for discovery purposes?

[115 Cal.App.3d 640] The above mentioned guidelines do not require that rough interview notes taken by investigating officers be preserved for discovery purposes. In addressing this same issue, the court in People v. Dickerson (1969) 270 Cal.App.2d 352, 75 Cal.Rptr. 828, commented: "To support such a contention the defense must mean that in connection with any investigation of an alleged crime, everybody carrying on such an investigation must preserve rough notes made for the purpose of ensuring accuracy of their official reports and deliver them upon request to defense counsel in order to give possible grounds for cross-examination of such witnesses; no such rule has ever been propounded; it seems to us that it seeks to carry to a ridiculous extreme the enunciation of 'rights of accused criminals.' " (Id., at p. 360, 75 Cal.Rptr. 828.) We concur with this appraisal.

This is not to say that such notes are never discoverable; indeed, should such notes still be in existence at the time a discovery order is made they should be turned over as part of the overall discovery package. (People v. Torres (1971) 19 Cal.App.3d 724, 731, 97 Cal.Rptr. 139.) We simply refuse to impose a judicial mandate that requires in each and every instance all original notes taken during the investigatory process be retained. (See ibid.) Where an officer testifies that he made an accurate report based on the interview notes and thereafter a copy of the report is given to opposing counsel, there can be no cause to complain that all required discovery materials have not been provided and certainly no basis for requiring the officer's testimony be excluded as a result of inability to produce such notes.