Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Right to see and read the police report

You pose a question which is very problematic,at least in California. Consider a bit of legalhistory. A "star chamber" proceeding was onein which, literally, one did not know what onewas charged with nor was one allowed to knowwhat evidence the government possessed. Thisobviously made formulating a defense somewhatdifficult, if not impossible. Today, we are supposed to be way past suchabuses of individual rights. Yet, as a privateattorney, I am astounded by the recurrentfact situation where a potential client tellsme that neither the Court nor the appointedPublic Defender has allowed the client to seethe reports concerning his/her case. In Court,at out of custody arraignments, I routinely seejudges refuse to give the accused the policereports. The defendant is told to have his/herattorney pick them up or if a P.D. case thathis public defender will pick them up. The complication is that it is a felony (and grounds for disbarment) for an attorneyto reveal the address of a witness to the accused. This is so, even if the accused doesnot do anything with the information such asharass the witness. I feel the answer to your question is thatthe client has an absolute right to see thepolice report but it must be "redacted" byblacking out the addresses of witnesses (evenwhen the accused knows the address). As a practical point, I cannot fathom howan attorney can expect to prepare a defenseif his client has not read and discussed the reports. Many an attorney is running scaredhowever and don't want to chance some incidenthappening where a witness complains.