State of Tennessee v. Robert Jonathan Harrison

This appeal involves the procedure for discovering the records of a clinical psychologist whom the defendant intends to call as an expert witness at a pretrial competency hearing in a criminal case. After the defendant filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Chester County requesting to be declared incompetent to stand trial, the State obtained a judicial subpoena under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-17- 123 (2006) directing the defendant’s psychologist to produce “[a]ny and all records” related to his examination of the defendant. The trial court declined to quash the subpoena but granted the defendant an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The intermediate appellate  court held that the trial court erred by issuing a subpoena under Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-17-123 but, characterizing the competency hearing as “in the nature of a civil proceeding,” ordered the production of the materials sought in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02. State v. Harrison, No. W2006-00483-CCA-R9-CD, 2007 WL 906730, at *4 (Tenn. Crim. App. Mar. 2, 2007). We granted the defendant’s application for permission to appeal to address the application of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02 to pretrial competency hearings in criminal cases. We concur with the Court of Criminal Appeals’ conclusions that the trial court erred by granting the judicial subpoena and that the State is entitled to discover the report of the expert testifying for the defendant in the competency  hearing. However, we have also determined that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 35.02 does not apply to pretrial competency hearings in criminal cases. Exercising our inherent supervisory authority over  Tennessee’s judicial system, we adopt a temporary procedure for the disclosure and use of evidence relating to competency to stand trial in criminal cases.