STATE v. TASCARELLA

Factual and Procedural Background

The State of Florida filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the District Court of Appeal, Fourth District, seeking review of a circuit court order that excluded certain witnesses from testifying at a pending criminal trial. The respondents, Allen Tascarella and Barbara Ambs Tascarella, are defendants charged with trafficking in cocaine. They were arrested by agents of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A.). D.E.A. agents who were listed as witnesses in the State's discovery response refused to testify by deposition despite a trial-court order requiring them to respond to subpoenas. The agents declined to testify upon advice from the U.S. Attorney's Office. The opinion notes that the agents are Department of Justice employees and are subject to a federal regulatory restriction—cited as 28 C.F.R. §§ 16.21 et seq.—forbidding disclosure of information acquired in their official duties or contained in department files without prior approval. After a hearing the trial court found that the defendants would be prejudiced if required to confront those witnesses at trial without pretrial discovery, concluded that contempt was not an available remedy under the circumstances, and imposed the sanction of excluding the witnesses under Rule 3.220(j) of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. The District Court of Appeal denied the State's petition for certiorari review and certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court.

Legal Issues Presented

1. IS IT AN ABUSE OF DISCRETION TO EXCLUDE EVIDENCE AS A SANCTION AGAINST THE STATE WHERE GOVERNMENT AGENTS DISREGARD A COURT ORDER BECAUSE THEY ARE RESTRICTED BY LAW FROM DISCLOSING INFORMATION WITHOUT APPROVAL?

Arguments of the Parties

The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the parties' legal arguments.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court's analysis is concise and fact-focused. It accepted the trial court's factual findings that: (1) the D.E.A. agents were identified in the State's discovery responses; (2) the agents refused deposition testimony on the advice of the U.S. Attorney's Office despite a subpoena and a trial-court order; and (3) the agents are subject to a federal regulation (28 C.F.R. §§ 16.21 et seq.) restricting disclosure without approval. The trial court concluded that the defendants would be prejudiced if compelled to confront those witnesses at trial without prior discovery, and that contempt proceedings were not a practicable alternative under the circumstances. Relying on Rule 3.220(j) of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, the trial court imposed the sanction of excluding the witnesses from testifying. The District Court of Appeal reviewed the trial court's action by certiorari standard and determined that the petitioners (the State) had not shown that the trial court's order departed from the essential requirements of law. Accordingly, the appellate court denied certiorari relief. Because the appellate court recognized an important unresolved question of law arising from these circumstances, it certified the question quoted above to the Florida Supreme Court.

Holding and Implications

DENIED. The District Court of Appeal denied the State's petition for writ of certiorari, effectively leaving intact the trial court's order excluding the D.E.A. agents from testifying as a discovery sanction under Rule 3.220(j).

Implications: The immediate consequence is that the exclusion sanction imposed by the trial court remains in force for the parties in this case. The appellate court did not elaborate broader legal consequences in this opinion; it certified to the Florida Supreme Court the specific question of whether excluding evidence under these circumstances is an abuse of discretion. No other precedent was announced in this opinion.

Judges Dell, Gunther, and Stone concurred in the opinion.