David, J.
Over thirty years ago, this Court decided State ex rel. Keaton v. Cir. Ct. of Rush Cnty., 475 N.E.2d 1146 (Ind. 1985). Citing an undue burden on prosecuting attorneys and the potential for abuse by defense counsel, the Court concluded criminal trial courts do not have inherent authority to require the State to produce complete copies of police reports over the prosecuting attorney’s timely work product objection. Id. at 1148. Decided in a time when lawyers redacted documents using Marks-a-Lot markers, the Keaton court was unlikely to fathom electronic filing or software programs readily accessible to legal professionals today.
But as technology developed after our Keaton decision, the rules governing criminal procedure, and custom, likewise changed over time. And today, the majority of prosecutors across the State of Indiana regularly produce police reports to defendants and their counsel, while prosecutor’s offices in the minority of counties automatically assert the work product privilege over these documents as a matter of policy.
In the midst of this change, Minges challenges the trial court’s denial of his motion to compel the State to produce a copy of the police report related to his misdemeanor charges. In doing so, Minges asks us to reconsider our decision in Keaton. Today, we accept his request, overrule Keaton, and remand to the trial court to determine whether the police report is privileged work product in a manner consistent with this opinion.
…
The primary issue on appeal is whether State ex rel. Keaton v. Cir. Ct. of Rush Cnty., 475 N.E.2d 1146 (Ind. 1985), deprives trial courts of their broad discretion in matters of discovery to order the State to produce complete copies of police reports despite a timely objection that the report is privileged work product of the prosecuting attorney.
Before we proceed to our analysis, we recall the facts and circumstances of Keaton. In 1983, the State charged David Kidd with murder, and he filed several discovery motions requesting copies of all relevant police reports. Id. The State refused to provide verbatim copies of the reports, arguing they were the work product of its prosecuting attorney. Id. at 1147. Instead, the prosecutor allowed defense counsel to examine the reports for exculpatory information. Id. After a hearing on the matter, the trial court ordered the prosecutor to produce “verbatim copies” of the police reports. Id. Disagreeing with the trial court, and citing an undue burden on prosecuting attorneys and the potential for abuse by defense counsel, this Court concluded “Where, as in the instant case, a timely work product objection has been made, a trial court’s authority to control discovery does not extend to compelling production of verbatim copies of police reports.” Id. at 1148. Therefore, the police reports were not discoverable. Id.
Minges requests that we overrule Keaton because its holding is “incongruous with the rules of this Court and the principles of fairness and justice.” Pet. to Trans. at 14. We accept his request.
…
Here, we find several reasons to support our decision. First, we analyze the extent to which Keaton conflicts with Indiana’s Trial Rules. In doing so, we conclude Trial Rule 26(B)(3) supersedes the Court’s decision in Keaton. Next, we examine whether the reasons justifying the Court’s decision are proper considerations while analyzing whether a police report is protected by the work product privilege set forth in Trial Rule 26(B)(3). Concluding they are not and finding Trial Rule 26(B)(3) supersedes Keaton, we overrule Keaton and remand to the trial court to consider the State’s claim that the Police Report constitutes the prosecutor’s work product in a manner consistent with this opinion.
…
While the work product doctrine was central to Keaton’s holding, Trial Rule 26(B)(3) is absent from the Court’s analysis, and the Keaton court did not examine whether the police reports met the two-pronged definition of “work product” under Trial Rule 26(B)(3). Moreover, a careful reading of the Court’s decision does not provide additional insight as to whether the authoring law enforcement officers acted as agents of the prosecuting attorney in drafting the police reports or the reports contained the officers’ or prosecutor’s mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories. See 475 N.E.2d at 1149 (DeBruler, J., dissenting) (“Absent here from the showing are the form, nature, and intended uses of ‘police reports.’”).
However, it appears to us the lack of reference to Trial Rule 26(B)(3) in the Keaton decision is merely a product of time, rather than an intentional omission. Specifically, amended Criminal Rule 21, effective March 1, 1997, provides the Trial Rules apply to all criminal “proceedings,” whereas its original form referred only to criminal “appeals.” See In re WTHR-TV, 693 N.E.2d 1, 5 n. 3 (Ind. 1998) (concluding to the extent the criminal cases cited in the footnote “or other cases suggest the Trial Rules are per se inapplicable to criminal proceedings, they are superseded by the recent amendment” to Criminal Rule 21) (emphasis added). Accordingly, it is not only possible, but probable, our Court would have decided Keaton differently under the amended Criminal Rule 21. Since we have the benefit of the amended Criminal Rule 21 as we resolve this appeal, we find Trial Rule 26, and specifically the work product doctrine codified as Trial Rule 26(B)(3), applies to criminal proceedings, including Minges’ matter.
As additional support, we note Keaton seemingly broadens the scope of the work product doctrine in favor of the State by protecting police reports from disclosure upon the prosecutor’s timely work product objection. 475 N.E.2d at 1148. Whether rightly or wrongly, courts have interpreted Keaton as providing a blanket privilege to police reports, effectively depriving a trial court from exercising its discretion in compelling disclosure over the prosecuting attorney’s timely workproduct objection. See, e.g., Beckham v. State, 531 N.E.2d 475, 476 (Ind. 1988) (“[I]n general, police reports are not discoverable and are considered protected as ‘work product’ of the prosecutor.”); Goolsby, 517 N.E.2d at 60 (citing Keaton for the rule that police reports constitute the work product of the prosecuting attorney, and thus the trial court did not commit error by ruling the officer’s report was not discoverable).
Yet, Indiana generally disfavors bare assertions of privilege in the context of discovery. Compare Hayworth, 669 N.E.2d at 169 (noting “courts disfavor blanket claims of privilege…”) (internal citations omitted), with TP Orthodontics, 15 N.E.3d at 994 (finding a company met its burden of asserting the privilege because it was a broad, but not blanket, claim of privilege). Further, interpreting Keaton in this manner effectively exempts the State from the “analytical rigor otherwise placed on a proponent under Trial 26,” slip op. at 20 (Bailey, J., concurring), as soon as it (or its attorney) objects on the basis that the report is privileged work product. See Hayworth, 669 N.E.2d at 169 (reiterating that a party claiming the privilege bears “the burden to allege and prove the applicability of the privilege” for each document sought by the requesting party). We see no reason to perpetuate this reading of Keaton when Trial Rule 26(B)(3) and other discovery principles provide the appropriate framework for analyzing whether the work product doctrine protects a police report from disclosure.
The State argues Keaton’s holding “does not give [it] an advantage, but recognizes the reality of our criminal justice system: that a police officer acts as the agent of the prosecutor when authoring a report alleging criminal activity, and therefore that report is the work product of the prosecuting attorney.” Resp. to Trans. at 5. In certain circumstances, that might be true. Like our colleagues in the Court of Appeals, we have little doubt that police officers are agents of the State. However, we hesitate to treat police officers as per se agents of its prosecuting attorneys, especially “before the prosecutor is even involved in a case.” Slip op. at 11. And as Justice DeBruler commented in his dissent, the work product “doctrine protects the machinations of lawyers and their legal staffs, not law enforcement officers engaged in their day to day filed[sic] work.” Keaton, 475 N.E.2d at 1148 (DeBruler, J., dissenting). Rather than relying on a blanket privilege for police reports, Trial Rule 26(B)(3) provides an objective standard for determining whether a police report is work product.
Finally, the State argues it “has an interest in protecting information in a police report from being disseminated to the public,” because police reports may identify a victim or contain other sensitive information, such as a confidential informant’s identity, and the work product doctrine “acknowledges all these interests.” Resp. to Trans. at 11. Today’s decision should not be interpreted as compromising any of the protective devices available to safeguard this information; we merely conclude a blanket privilege for police reports based on the work product doctrine is inappropriate to accomplish this end. Instead, the State can redact sensitive information using readily available computer software, move for a protective order, see T.R. 26(C), invoke the confidential informer’s privilege, see Jones, 169 N.E.3d at 400, and although a rare procedure in discovery disputes, even request the trial court to complete in camera inspection of any disputed materials. See Richey v. Chappell, 594 N.E.2d 443, 445 (Ind. 1992) (citing Canfield v. Sandock, 563 N.E.2d 526, 531 (Ind. 1990)). But if the State believes a police report is protected from disclosure as the prosecuting attorney’s work product, Trial Rule 26(B)(3), as incorporated into criminal proceedings by amended Criminal Rule 21, sets forth the framework in making such an argument to the trial court.
…
Given that nearly every county in Indiana—apart from two which claim the work product privilege for every police report—has an open file policy allowing the defense to examine those police reports summarizing the State’s investigation, see, e.g., Johnson v. State, 446 N.E.2d 1307, 1310 (Ind. 1983); Hinkle v. State, 97 N.E.3d 654, 659 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), it appears that disclosing such reports, and risking the potential for misuse, has been largely unproblematic.
We stress, though, that this Court’s decision does not suggest that police reports may never qualify as work product. Even the parties concede the doctrine may otherwise protect police reports under certain circumstances. For example, to the extent that the police reports at issue in Keaton satisfied Trial Rule 26(B)(3), the Court correctly concluded the trial court abused its discretion by compelling the State to produce “verbatim copies” of the reports. We merely clarify that Trial Rule 26(B)(3) supersedes any reliance on Keaton as preventing trial courts from exercising their discretion in determining whether the work product privilege protects a particular police report from disclosure.
We acknowledge that the Court’s decision today stands in tension with other decisions of this Court which cited Keaton for the proposition that a trial court in a criminal proceeding does not have the inherent power to order production of verbatim copies of police reports over the timely work product objection of the prosecuting attorney. See, e.g., Goolsby, 517 N.E.2d at 60; Beckham, 531 N.E.2d at 476–77; State ex rel. Crawford v. Super. Ct. of Lake Cnty., Crim. Div., Room II, 549 N.E.2d 374, 376 (Ind. 1990); Robinson v. State, 693 N.E.2d 548 (Ind. 1998); Gault v. State, 878 N.E.2d 1260, 1266 (Ind. 2008); Johnson v. State, 584 N.E.2d 1092, 1103 (Ind. 1992). To the extent these cases conflict with today’s holding, we disapprove of them.
Even though the work product doctrine is most often invoked in civil litigation, “its role in assuring the proper functioning of the criminal justice system is even more vital,” for “[t]he interests of society and the accused in obtaining a fair and accurate resolution of the question of guilt or innocence demand that adequate safeguards assure the thorough preparation and presentation of each side of the case.” Nobles, 422 U.S. at 238. Nonetheless, the doctrine is not without its limits, and a trial court has discretion in matters of discovery “to guide and control the trial in the best interests of justice.” State ex rel. Keller, 317 N.E.2d at 435. To do so, we believe Trial Rule 26(B)(3) provides adequate guidance for the trial court to determine—on a case-by-case basis—whether a police report is protectible work product. And because the trial court believed it was without discretion under Keaton to consider whether the Police Report was the prosecuting attorney’s work product, we remand for the trial court to consider the State’s claim in light of Trial Rule 26(B)(3).
Therefore, we overrule Keaton and remand to the trial court with instructions to reconsider whether the Police Report is protected by the work product privilege in a manner consistent with the Court’s decision.
Rush, C.J., and Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.