Teal

Charles Terry Teal II issued third party subpoenas seeking material to assist in defending criminal charges filed against him. After an in camera review, the trial court allowed defense counsel to obtain some of the subpoenaed material, but ordered her to provide copies of this material to the prosecution. Teal filed a petition for a writ of mandate seeking review of the portion of this order requiring divulgence of the discovered information and denying his request for certain information relating to a percipient witness to the incident. We grant the petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Teal was charged with attempted murder, battery causing great bodily injury and assault by means likely to cause great bodily injury after he allegedly threw a man off the third floor balcony of a motel. A motel security guard saw the incident and identified Teal.

Teal made an informal request to have the prosecution produce, among other things, criminal records (rap sheets) for prosecution witnesses under Penal Code section 1054 et al. (All statutory references are to this code.) Defense counsel moved for discovery after she was unable to obtain the material based on her…