State v. Retterath
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The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals reversing the judgment of the district court granting Defendant a new trial at which a key witness associated with missing records would be barred from testifying, holding that the unavailability of the records did not entitle Defendant to a retrial.
Defendant was convicted of solicitation to commit murder. At issue on appeal was whether the district court erred in denying Defendant's requests to obtain the privileged counseling records of two of the State's key witnesses on the grounds that the records might contain critical exculpatory information. The court of appeals reversed and remanded with instructions for the district court to review the counseling records. On remand, the two federal agencies believed to have the records refused to turn them over. The district court presumed the records contained exculpatory information and granted Defendant a new trial. The court of appeals reversed and remanded the case. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court erred in allocating the discovery burden and ordering a new trial without requiring Defendant to show that he’d exhausted every available avenue to lawfully obtain the medical records for the court to review.
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