People v. Municipal Court (Runyan)

Opinion

RICHARDSON, J.

In this case we inquire whether courts may permit a defendant in a criminal case to depose prosecution witnesses prior to trial, despite the defendant’s failure to establish, as required by statute (Pen. Code, § 1335 et seq.), that the witnesses are about to leave the state or are unlikely to attend the trial. We conclude that although courts possess broad inherent powers to provide for discovery in criminal cases, they should decline to exercise those powers in a manner which would ignore present statutory limitations or which would create a different, more extensive…