Assault & Battery Are Witness Statements Prosecutor's "Work Product"?

[barn_door]

Jurisdiction

Texas

I have a court-appointed attorney who is giving me regular "red-flags" about whether or not I can trust him. I have a list of about 10 concerns so far, and we are still in the very beginning stages of a criminal case wherein I am the Defendant. Without getting into the details of the case, I would like to know if certain things my court-appointed attorney are legally accurate. The most "flagrant" example of legalistic weirdness is when he told me that I could come to his office and view the statements the witnesses gave to the police on the night of the incident, and read them, but that I would not be allowed to take them, make copies of them, receive emailed .pdf's, etc... of these documents.

When asked why I would not be able to fully participate in my own defense, he claimed that they were considered (by "the law") to be the Prosecutor's "work product". This seems very odd to me, that my attorney has full control over documents, but me, the defendant, does not.

Another bit of weirdness is that he (my attorney) told me that we could not/would not be getting a subpeona for the phone records of one of the witnesses. My legal theory is that the witness may have been a co-conspirator in an assault which took place, in which I defended myself. So the prosecution's "witness" may have actually been a co-conspirator, and a supeona of the witness's phone records might show that they were in telephonic/SMS contact just prior to the assault/incident.

My attorney says that we can't/won't get those phone records and when asked "why?", he became annoyed and ambiguous, both. It was obvious to me that we aren't going to subpeona those phone records only because he doesn't want to, and could not give a substantive reason for not doing it.

I have other bits of oddness, but I need to see what kind of response I get (if any) before broadcasting any more of this openly. Thanks in advance.

 

[army judge]

In rural counties this tends to be the norm.

The law on discovery was amended in 2014, I believe.

A defendant is entitled to the things you describe.

If the prosecutor denies access to them, or refuses to allow you to copy them, a motion would have to be argued before the court to have the judge compel the prosecutor to comply.

Again, the scenario you describe is less likely to be seen in Dallas, Bexar, Travis, or Tarrant counties.

It might be more common in Coryell County, for example.

Some criminal defendants have requested the court to be their own attorney, and the licensed attorney to serve as an advisor or backup attorney. If you accomplish that, you decide your trial strategy.

Before you open that can of worms, it's harder than it looks.

Frankly, it's not a defendant's job to prove anything.
That's the state's burden to carry.

What are the charges you're facing?

 

[barn_door]

A defendant is entitled to the things you describe.

If the prosecutor denies access to them, or refuses to allow you to copy them, a motion would have to be argued before the court to have the judge compel the prosecutor to comply.

It's not "the Prosecutor" that is denying anything, it's my own, court-appointed attorney. Today he read to me the Police report from one of the witnesses, and while reading it, either he got the sequence of events wrong (the facts were accurate), or the Police Officer that did the report got the sequence wrong, or the "witness" to the incident gave the sequence wrong.

So, instead of being able to read the report myself, and know for myself whether or not my attorney read it correctly, or out-of-sequence, either my attorney reads to me the report(s), or I arrange to come to his office in order to read them myself, but what he won't do is simply email me a .pdf copy of the report.

And its a Police Report. I would assume that's public information. Why is my own, court-appointed attorney my access to public information?

I'm willing to share certain details via PM, but longer story short I defended myself against an assault on the street. At our 1st meeting, my attorney said we could either a) make the state prove the entirety of their case, and give them nothing, or b) acknowledge the bulk of the details, and make the case that my actions were in self-defense (which they clearly were, the only question is whether or not the evidence supports that claim or not.)

But for purposes of this thread and it's question, could you please be very clear, and tell me whether or not a defendant can be denied access to a police report statement from a witness to an alleged crime that the defendant is being charged with. It makes no sense to me, and I need a clear answer one way or the other, and with some legal reasoning behind it, one way or the other.

 

[army judge]

If the lawyer is a public defender, you can inform the court that you wish to fire him because you disagree on trial strategy. You don't need to disclose details to the court, other than you and he disagree, you've lost confidence in his ability to represent you, and you'd like to court to appoint new counsel.

There's no simple answer to what you're asking.
Besides, no one but your attorney knows why he's doing what you allege is being done.

You could ask him, however, based on what you've said that wont be productive.

From a legal perspective, what you call "protecting yourself" might not fit the legal definition of self defense.

Self defense in most people's minds is normally noncompliant with the legal definition under the law.

If I were your lawyer, I'd simply make you a copy and let you read it for yourself. Why your lawyer believes otherwise is beyond my comprehension.

I don't want the details of your case. All I wanted to know is what crime you are charged with ALLEGEDLY committing?

 

[ElleMD]

It is also entirely possible what you think it relevant is not. In order to subpoena records there has to be sufficient cause. Subpoenas are not just fishing expeditions in the hopes of finding something. It also may have no bearing on whether or not you are guilty of the crime you are charged with. If you are charged with assaulting someone, who the victim spoke with beforehand is irrelevant.

 

[barn_door]

It is also entirely possible what you think it relevant is not. In order to subpoena records there has to be sufficient cause. Subpoenas are not just fishing expeditions in the hopes of finding something. It also may have no bearing on whether or not you are guilty of the crime you are charged with. If you are charged with assaulting someone, who the victim spoke with beforehand is irrelevant.

That would not be true if the "victim" and the witness worked together to coordinate an attack on me, and things did not go according to their plan. If the witness were a co-conspirator (don't know if that word is technically accurate in this situation or not, but you get my point here) in an assault that failed to achieve it's desired results, then the witnesses testimony is legally worthless as it 1) hides his own involvement in the crime 2) hides the "victims" involvement in the crime and 3) accomplishes the goal of causing me harm in a different fashion.

However, if a trial does not happen for another 2 years, how likely is it that the phone records that show that the two were in collusion on the night of the attack will still be available? My opinion: 0%. Both the "victim" and the "witness" are felons, and I am not, to give a general perspective on things.

 

[ElleMD]

You either hit the guy or you didn't. What they might have planned to do but did not do is irrelevant. At the time with only the information you had available to you in that moment, were acting in self-defense or the judge does not believe that you were. Your after the fact speculation on motives does not change that, nor would knowing they spoke to one another by phone in the minutes leading up to the incident mean they were plotting against you, as opposed to coordinating where to meet up to go to dinner.

 

[army judge]

The phone records alone, absent other information, prove one thing: A call was attempted or connected from 515-333-2222 to 212-666-7777 on 12/11/15 for 15 minutes.

It doesn't prove that Thug Jones even talked with Thugly Green.
It doesn't prove a conversation took place.
It can't prove that Thug Jones placed the call.
It can't prove any conversation took place.
Anyone could have placed the call.
Calls can be spoofed.

Now, does that help you better why hunting expeditions aren't encouraged during criminal trials?

Absent proof to the contrary, phone call records prove nothing except a connection between two numbers occurred. However, such connections can be spoofed.