THE ARIZONA INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMMISSION v HONORABLE KENNETH FIELDS, Judge of the Superior Court of the State of Arizona

No. 1 CA-SA 03-0085

Court of Appeals State of Arizona

September 16, 2003 Filed

In this special action, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (“IRC”) challenges the trial court's order granting a motion by the Arizona Minority Coalition for Fair Redistricting (“Coalition”) to compel the IRC to produce documents exchanged between the IRC, its consultants, and expert witnesses. The IRC claims that the requested documents are protected from disclosure by legislative, deliberative process, attorney-client, and work-product privileges. The trial court found that none of these privileges applied to immunize the documents from disclosure. We decide that communications between the IRC and its consultants are subject to the protection afforded by the legislative privilege. While we do not decide the applicability of the deliberative process privilege, the attorney-client and work-product privileges are inapplicable. Additionally, by designating consulting experts as testifying experts, the IRC waived any legislative privilege attaching to communications with those experts, or any materials reviewed by them, that relate to the subject of the experts' testimony.

For the reasons that follow, we accept jurisdiction and grant relief to the IRC in the manner described hereafter.