Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-00219/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-00219-26/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

 **E-filed 9/22/06**

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

Michael Angelo MORALES,

 Plaintiff,

 v.

James E. TILTON, Acting Secretary of the

California Department of Corrections and

Rehabilitation, and Robert L. Ayers Jr., Acting

Warden of San Quentin State Prison,

 Defendants.

Case Number C 06 219 JF RS

Case Number C 06 926 JF RS

DEATH-PENALTY CASE

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS

TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER

AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING

MOTIONS

[Docs. Nos. 220-21, 224, 234, 237, 2xx]

The present action involves a challenge to California’s lethal-injection protocol, which is

known as San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 0-770, or OP 770. On September 12, 2006,

the magistrate judge to whom this action has been referred for discovery disputes issued an order

granting in part and denying in part Plaintiff’s second motion to compel discovery. (Doc. No.

209.) The order, inter alia, compelled Defendants and nonparty witness Office of Governor

Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (“the Governor’s Office”) to produce certain documents by

September 22, 2006, in light of the evidentiary hearing in this action that is scheduled to

commence on September 26, 2006.

It is the Court’s understanding that most of the discovery ordered by the magistrate judge

is proceeding. However, Plaintiff, Defendants, and the Governor’s Office object to discrete parts

Case 3:06-cv-00219-RS Document 242 Filed 09/22/06 Page 1 of 6
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1Defendants have submitted to the Court under seal for review in camera one such set of

documents regarding an investigation of alleged medical misconduct by an execution team member; the

investigation concluded with a finding that the allegation of misconduct was not sustained. Defendants

do not object as such to the disclosure of these documents. Accordingly, Defendants must produce these

documents as well as any other such documents. Because the protective order previously issued in this

action necessarily governs such documents, Defendants’ request for a further protective order is denied.

2

Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

of the magistrate judge’s order. Their objections, along with related requests by Defendants and

the Governor’s Office for partial stays of the magistrate judge’s order, now are before the Court. 

(Docs. Nos. 220, 221, & 224.) “The district judge to whom the case is assigned shall consider

such objections and shall modify or set aside any portion of the magistrate judge’s order found to

be clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); see also 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A)

(2006).

The Court has reviewed the briefs submitted in support of and in response to the

objections and has considered the oral arguments of counsel presented during a telephonic

hearing on September 21, 2006. In addition, Defendants and the Governor’s Office have lodged

with the Court under seal the documents that are the subject of their objections to permit the

Court to review the documents in camera.

I

Plaintiff objects to the magistrate judge’s denial of some discovery regarding possible

medical misconduct by members of the execution team and in the units in which such members

work. While the magistrate judge did order—and Defendants do not object to—the disclosure of 

documents regarding investigations of execution team members (including investigations of

alleged medical misconduct),1 Plaintiff is concerned that there may have been relevant

allegations of misconduct that were not investigated due to a “culture of concealment” in

California’s prison system that has been found in the ongoing litigation in Plata v.

Schwarzenegger, No. C 01 1351 TEH (N.D. Cal. filed April 5, 2001), whereby the provision of

medical care by Defendants has been placed in a federal receivership. (See Doc. No. 225-3.)

The magistrate judge appropriately decided not to expand the scope of discovery at this

late stage of the present litigation. Plaintiff’s allegations of a lack of professionalism on San

Case 3:06-cv-00219-RS Document 242 Filed 09/22/06 Page 2 of 6
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2

In particular, in the September 12 order, the magistrate judge correctly determined that requests

nos. 3 and 5 from Plaintiff’s third set of document requests—seeking “notes generated by any CDCR

employee [or] representative . . . at the meeting called by the Governor’s legal affairs secretary . . .” and

“notes generated by any CDCR employee [or] representative . . . that refer to the process concluded upon

3

Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

Quentin’s medical staff certainly are relevant to the constitutionality of a lethal-injection protocol

that relies on members of San Quentin’s medical staff for its implementation. However,

considering that Plaintiff has been permitted significant discovery into these matters already, that

Defendants may remove and replace individual execution team members at any time, and that the

Court may take judicial notice of relevant documents filed including factual findings made and

legal conclusions reached in Plata, the Court cannot say that the magistrate judge’s decision not

to expand the scope of discovery to the extent sought by Plaintiff was clearly erroneous or

contrary to law.

II

On February 28, 2006, following Defendants’ decision not to proceed with Plaintiff’s

execution, a meeting was held at the Governor’s Office to consider revisions to OP 770. 

Participants at the meeting included Senior Assistant Attorney General Dane R. Gillette, lead

counsel for Defendants, and Bruce Slavin, Chief Counsel for the California Department of

Corrections and Rehabilitation. Messrs. Gillette and Slavin each took two pages of notes at the

meeting. These notes are the documents that Defendants object to producing.

Defendants contend that the documents at issue are protected from discovery as attorney

work product pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(3). Specifically, Defendants

assert that the magistrate judge’s September 12 order failed to analyze expressly the assertion of

the work-product doctrine by Defendants, as distinguished from a similar assertion made by the

Governor’s Office.

While Defendants’ assertion is correct as far as it goes, it omits the fact that the

documents at issue were the subject of a prior order issued on May 2, 2006 (Doc. No. 151), in

which the magistrate judge granted in part and denied in part Plaintiff’s first motion to compel

discovery2 and to which Defendants did not object.3 It has been more than four months since the

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at the meeting called by the Governor’s legal affairs secretary”—were “specific iterations of earlier

document requests” that were governed by the May 2 order. (Doc. No. 209 at 3.)

3

Indeed, Defendants had not even identified the documents in a privilege log so as to preserve

any claim of protection under the work-product doctrine, although Defendants had raised the workproduct doctrine in an inadequate attempt to cover the documents at issue in a general way. See

Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. United States Dist. Ct., 408 F.3d 1142, 1149 (9th Cir. 2005); see

also Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5) (requiring that party claiming protection of attorney work product “shall

make the claim expressly and shall describe the nature of the documents . . . in a matter that . . . will

enable other parties to assess the applicability of the . . . protection”). Although Defendants chose not to

rely on the work-product doctrine (instead emphasizing the deliberative-process privilege) in their

briefing opposing Plaintiff’s first motion to compel and at oral argument before the magistrate judge on

that motion, the nature of the documents was readily apparent, and there is no reason why the workproduct doctrine could not have been asserted properly at that time.

4

It has been more than six months since Plaintiff initially requested the documents at issue.

4

Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

magistrate judge issued the May 2 order.4 Though the Court may well have sustained a timely

and properly presented objection to the production pursuant to the May 2 order of the documents

at issue, it is now too late for Defendants to object to their production. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a)

(“Within 10 days after being served with a copy of the magistrate judge’s order, a party may

serve and file objections to the order; a party may not thereafter assign as error a defect in the

magistrate judge’s order to which objection was not timely made.”). Accordingly, the magistrate

judge’s September 12 order compelling production of these documents was neither clearly

erroneous nor contrary to law.

Pursuant to the terms of the magistrate judge’s order, the discovery compelled from

Defendants is due on September 22, 2006, the date of the present order. Accordingly,

Defendants’ request for a partial stay of the magistrate judge’s order is moot by the present order. 

Even if the request for a stay were not moot, the Court would deny it because of the overriding

importance of proceeding with the evidentiary hearing as scheduled.

III

In March 2006, Plaintiff sought discovery from Defendants regarding documents in the

possession of the Governor’s Office, including documents related to the February 28 meeting. 

Defendants initially agreed to disclose such discoverable documents. However, on August 8,

Case 3:06-cv-00219-RS Document 242 Filed 09/22/06 Page 4 of 6
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Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

2006, Plaintiff was informed (on the basis of what counsel for the Governor’s Office at oral

argument termed a “judgment call”) that “the Office of the Governor of the State of California is

a separate and independent state agency and is not a party to this action,” and that Plaintiff would

have to obtain any such documents by subpoena. Soon thereafter, Plaintiff issued a subpoena to

the Governor’s Office. In response, the Governor’s Office asserted that some of the requested

documents are subject to various privileges, including the attorney-client privilege, or protected

from disclosure by the work-product doctrine; the Governor’s Office contends that the attorneyclient privilege and the work-product doctrine are applicable because it, like Defendants’ lead

counsel and general counsel, in effect is counsel for Defendants because of the Governor’s

supervisory rôle in overseeing litigation against the State.

The magistrate judge found the positions taken by the Governor’s Office to be internally

inconsistent and without merit, and this Court has reached the tentative conclusion that the

magistrate judge’s ruling is neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law. Nonetheless, in the

interests of comity and respect for the separation of powers, the Court will defer ruling on the

objections asserted by the Governor’s Office until after the impending evidentiary hearing. 

Having reviewed the documents in camera and having found them to be largely cumulative and

not particularly probative with respect to the central issues to be addressed at the evidentiary

hearing (cf. Fed. R. Evid. 403), and in light of the Court’s inherent power to permit and order any

necessary further development of the factual record following the conclusion of the hearing, the

Court finds that Plaintiff will not be prejudiced by not having access to the documents prior to

the hearing. Moreover, the Court will be in a better position after the hearing to resolve the

instant objections. Accordingly, the Court will grant a stay of the magistrate judge’s order

insofar as it applies to the Governor’s Office pending further order of the Court.

IV

For the reasons set forth herein, and good cause therefor appearing, Plaintiff’s and

Defendants’ objections to the magistrate judge’s order granting in part and denying in part

Plaintiff’s second motion to compel discovery are overruled; Defendants’ request for a partial

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Case Nos. C 06 219 JF RS & C 06 926 JF RS

ORDER REGARDING OBJECTIONS TO MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER AND REQUESTS FOR STAYS;

ORDER ON OTHER PENDING MOTIONS

(DPSAGOK)

stay of such order is denied; the Court will defer ruling on the objections of nonparty witness

Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California until after the impending evidentiary

hearing; the request for a stay of the magistrate judge’s order insofar as it compels discovery

from the Governor’s Office is granted subject to further order of the Court.

V

A number of other pending motions were discussed during the September 21 telephonic

hearing. For the reasons stated on the record at the hearing, and good cause therefor appearing,

Plaintiff’s motion for a continuance of the evidentiary hearing and a corresponding motion to

shorten time are denied; Plaintiff’s motion regarding redactions is granted pursuant to the terms

set forth at the hearing; and Defendants are required to make Witness No. 9 available for

deposition pursuant to the schedule agreed upon by counsel.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: September 22, 2006 __________________________________

JEREMY FOGEL

United States District Judge

Case 3:06-cv-00219-RS Document 242 Filed 09/22/06 Page 6 of 6