Taylor v. Illinois
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''Taylor v. Illinois'', 484 U.S. 400 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that defense witnesses can be prevented from testifying under certain circumstances, even if that hurts the defense's case. ''Taylor'' was the first case to hold that there is no absolute bar to blocking the testimony of a surprise witness, even if that is an essential witness for the defendant, a limitation of the broad right to present a defense recognized in ''
Washington v. Texas ''Washington v. Texas'', 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (guaranteeing the right of a criminal defendant to for ...
'' (1967). ''Taylor'' was the first Compulsory Process Clause case since ''Washington v. Texas'' to provide a specific limitation on the right of defendants to force their witnesses to testify. In that case, the Court construed a defendant's right very broadly in his ability to present a defense. Here, however, the Court restricted that ability to comply with court rules, especially if those rules were of equal consequence upon both the prosecution and the defense. This decision was reached over the dissent of three Justices, all of whom felt a defendant's case should not be limited based on an error solely by the defendant's attorney to list appropriate witnesses.


Background


History of discovery rules

Discovery procedures for defendants began with adoption of state laws in the 1920s. In the following decades, courts began instituting new procedures. In 1962, for example, the California Supreme Court ordered reciprocal discovery rules, without an initial law requiring it.. However, a series of problems surfaced with this judicially imposed system. Not only did both sides refuse to share intended testimony, but no 'alibi notice rule' was fashioned, leading to an unworkable position for both sides. In 1974, the California Supreme Court ordered the legislature to create the discovery system, ending the state's experiment with judicial discovery rule-making. In 1970, the United States Supreme Court first set down principles in terms of the constitutionality of discovery rules. In ''
Williams v. Florida ''Williams v. Florida'', 399 U.S. 78 (1970), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fifth Amendment does not entitle a defendant in a criminal trial to refuse to provide details of his alibi witnesses to the prosec ...
'', the Court held that Florida's 'notice-of-alibi' rule did not violate the Fifth Amendment. While the rule in ''Williams'' was reciprocal, it was not for another three years before the Court mandated that discovery rules had to be reciprocal as a general principle. The decision articulated the "two-way street" approach, that "trials be run as a 'search for truth'" without either side maintaining "'poker game' secrecy for its own witnesses". Along with these decisions that were specific to the discovery process, the Supreme Court broadened the general constitutional rights for defendants in the 1967 ruling of ''
Washington v. Texas ''Washington v. Texas'', 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (guaranteeing the right of a criminal defendant to for ...
''. In ''Washington'', the Court incorporated the Compulsory Process Clause against the states, holding that "the Constitution is violated by arbitrary rules that prevent whole categories of defense witnesses from testifying". Despite this, the Court did not rule specifically on whether the preclusion sanction was appropriate, instead applying the constitutional standard for an absolutist state law. Over the next few decades, the Supreme Court rejected attempts to review the sole constitutionality of a preclusion sanction.


Taylor's trial

On August 6, 1981, Ray Taylor was arrested for the murder of Jack Bridges in a fight in Chicago. In advance of the trial, the prosecutor submitted a request for all the defense witnesses in the case. The defense attorney for Taylor provided a list of four individuals, which did not include witnesses Alfred Wormley and Pam Berkhalter. When the defendant tried to introduce these witnesses on the second day of the trial, the trial judge sanctioned the defense for failing to put the witness names on the original list provided to the prosecution. Therefore, it ruled the two unlisted witnesses would not be allowed to testify. The trial judge was specifically frustrated that the witness, Wormley, ''was'' known to the defense prior to trial, but was hidden away from the prosecution. A jury convicted Taylor of the murder charge and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed. It held that when "discovery rules are violated, the trial judge may exclude the evidence which the violating party wishes to introduce". The Appellate Court's ruling further gave the trial judge discretion in the appropriate remedy in such a case – whether to exclude entirely the 'surprise' witnesses. Taylor sought a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court to review his case, which was accepted.


Opinion of the Court

Justice
John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...
wrote the
opinion An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with f ...
, which affirmed the decision of the Illinois Appellate Court, and upheld Taylor's conviction. He began by addressing the position of the state of Illinois, who argued that there is ''never'' a Compulsory Process Clause concern when preclusion of a witness is used as a discovery sanction. The Court had held the converse view, Stevens wrote that "few rights are more fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in his own defense". This strong footing of Sixth Amendment values forced the Court to reject the State's absolutist argument. At the same time though, the Court rejected the defendant's broad claim that there could ''never'' be preclusion of a defense witness. Stevens wrote that " e Compulsory Process Clause provides
he defendant He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
with an effective weapon, but it is a weapon that cannot be used irresponsibly". The whole adversarial process would be destroyed, Stevens argued, if either side could simply refuse to follow the basic rules of the Court. There are "countervailing public interests" which weigh against the absolute defense position. The broader idea embedded in the opinion was the idea that willful misconduct of an attorney lowers the truthfulness of proffered testimony. In the instant case, the Court held that a trial judge could hold the "presumption" that a new witnesses' testimony is perjured due to "a pattern of discovery violations". The ''pattern'' in Taylor's case was a series of two amendments to the witness list done in bad faith. "It would demean the high purpose of the lauseto construe it as encompassing an absolute right to an automatic continuance or mistrial", Stevens wrote. As the misconduct of the judge towards the defense counsel did not implicate the Sixth Amendment's Compulsory Process Clause, there was no need to disrupt the lower courts' decisions. Further, even though the defendant was harmed by the defense counsel error, Stevens wrote that such an argument could not excuse the counsel's fault. Despite the rejection of Taylor's constitutional position, the Court did create the framework for a balancing test for lower courts to use in handling future discovery preclusion questions. A trial court must balance the defendant's interest in a robust defense with the (i) state's interest in 'efficient' justice, (ii) state's interest in excluding evidence lacking integrity, (iii) state's interest in a strong judicial authority with followed rules, and (iv) the prosecution interest in avoiding prejudice due to a defendant's discovery violation..


Brennan's dissent

Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion was joined by Justices Marshall and Blackmun. Brennan argued that the "Court's balancing test creates a conflict of interest in every case involving a discovery violation" such that a better approach would be to hold that the "Compulsory Process Clause ''per se'' bars discovery sanctions that exclude criminal defense evidence". Brennan quoted at length from ''
Washington v. Texas ''Washington v. Texas'', 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (guaranteeing the right of a criminal defendant to for ...
'', a 1967 case which announced broad rights for defendants to present a defense. "The exclusion of criminal defense evidence undermines the central truthseeking aim of our criminal justice system", Brennan opined, "because it deliberately distorts the record at the risk of misleading the jury into convicting an innocent person". He went on to argue that simple preclusion of a defense witness was too extreme a penalty for a discovery violation, to the point that it "subverts criminal justice by basing convictions on a partial presentation of the facts".


Blackmun's dissent

Justice Blackmun wrote a separate one-paragraph long dissenting opinion. He stressed that "the State's legitimate interests might well occasion a result different from what should obtain in the factual context of the present case".


See also

*
Due Process Clause In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...
*
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this ...


Notes


References

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External links

* {{Sixth Amendment, compulsory, state=expanded Compulsory Process Clause case law Incorporation case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court 1988 in United States case law