Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-15-35434/USCOURTS-ca9-15-35434-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Grand Jury Subpoena

John A. Kitzhaber
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA,

JK-15-029,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JOHN A. KITZHABER,

Intervenor-Appellant.

No. 15-35434

D.C. No.

3:15-mc-00129-HZ

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Marco A. Hernandez, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 2, 2015

Portland, Oregon

Filed July 13, 2016

Before: Raymond C. Fisher, Marsha S. Berzon,

and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Berzon

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2 IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA

SUMMARY*

Grand Jury Subpoena

The panel reversed the district court’s order declining to

quash a grand jury subpoena seeking a broad range of

information from the State of Oregon as part of a federal

investigation into activities of former Governor John

Kitzhaber, and remanded.

For several years before Kitzhaber left office, copies of

his personal emails were archived on Oregon’s computer

servers. The panel agreed with Kitzhaber, an intervenor, that

he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in much of his

personal email (although the Fourth Amendment’s protection

does not extend to any use of a personal email account to

conduct public business), and that the subpoena in this case

— which is not even minimally tailored to the government’s

investigatory goals – is unreasonable and invalid. The panel

held that Kitzhaber may not assert the attorney-client

privilege for his communications, including communications

regarding potential conflicts of interest and ethics violations,

with the State of Oregon’s attorneys. The panel explained

that whatever privilege may protect those communications

belongs to the State of Oregon, not to Kitzhaber as an

individual officeholder in his personal capacity.

The panel remanded with instructions to quash the present

subpoena in its entirety. The panel declined to address in the

first instance issues likely to arise concerning the means of

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 3

segregating and producing the material requested by a

subpoena tailored in accordance with this opinion.

COUNSEL

Janet Lee Hoffman (argued) and Jennifer E. Roberts, Janet

Hoffman & Associates LLC, Portland, Oregon, for

Intervenor-Appellant.

Kelly A. Zusman (argued) and Scott Bradford, Assistant

United States Attorneys; Billy J. Williams, United States

Attorney; United States Attorney’s Office, Portland, Oregon;

for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

This case arises in the midst of an investigation by the

federal government into activities of the former Governor of

Oregon, John Kitzhaber. A grand jury’s subpoena seeks a

broad range of information from the State of Oregon, much

of which would be available to the general public under

Oregon’s public records laws. But a wide net is susceptible

to snags.

For several years before Kitzhaber left office, copies of

his personal emails were archived on Oregon’s computer

servers. According to Kitzhaber, he was unaware of the

archiving of these emails, which include many private details

unrelated to his official duties regarding him and his family,

as well as private communications with his personal attorneys

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4 IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA

and with attorneys for the State of Oregon. Because this

cache would be turned over to the government under the

subpoena, Kitzhaber argues the subpoena is unreasonably

broad, as it violates his Fourth Amendment privacy rights and

invades his attorney-client privilege. Kitzhaber asserts in

particular that the attorney-client privilege protects his

communication with attorneys for the State of Oregon

regarding issues concerning possible conflicts of interest and

ethics violations. The government disclaims any interest in

Kitzhaber’s communications with his personal attorneys but

argues it is otherwise entitled to everything it has requested.

The public’s interest in accountability and transparency

is particularly strong when it comes to the investigation of

elected officials, and grand juries are appropriately accorded

a wide degree of latitude. But we agree with Kitzhaber that

he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in much of his

personal email (although the Fourth Amendment’s protection

does not extend to any use of a personal email account to

conduct public business), and that the subpoena in this case

— which is not even minimally tailored to the government’s

investigatory goals — is unreasonable and invalid. We do

not agree, however, that Kitzhaber may assert the attorneyclient privilege for his communications, including

communications regarding potential conflicts of interest and

ethics violations, with the State of Oregon’s attorneys. 

Whatever privilege may protect those communications

belongs to the State of Oregon, not to Kitzhaber as an

individual officeholder in his personal capacity.

I

John Kitzhaber served as Governor of Oregon from 1995

until 2003, and again from 2011 until 2015. During this

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 5

second period in office, Kitzhaber declined to use an official

email address provided by the State of Oregon. Instead, he

established an account with the commercial email service

Gmail, which he used for official business. He requested that

the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS)

archive on the state’s servers emails sent to or from this

“official” Gmail address, and DAS complied.

In addition to his official Gmail account, Kitzhaber had a

personal Gmail account and another personal account hosted

at att.net. He checked all of these accounts from the same

computer. According to a member of the Governor’s senior

staff, Kitzhaber commonly used his personal addresses “to

communicate with senior staff for both personal and state

business.”

In February of 2015, Kitzhaber resigned from office,

surrounded by controversy over whether he had used his

position to benefit his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes. See Lee van der

Voo and Kirk Johnson, Governor Leaves Office in Oregon,

Besieged in Crisis, N.Y. Times, Feb. 14, 2015, at A1,

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/us/kitzhaber-resigns-asgovernor-of-oregon.html. Shortly before Kitzhaber’s

resignation, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to DAS as

part of an investigation into the Governor’s actions. The

subpoena asked DAS to provide “all information, records,

and documents” going back to January 1, 2009, “relating to”

Kitzhaber, Hayes, and several businesses and other entities. 

The subpoena also sought “anyand all email communications

from or to, or regarding” seventeen individuals, including

Kitzhaber and Hayes.

After he left office, Kitzhaber intervened in the grand jury

proceedings, filing a motion to quash the subpoena in the

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United States District Court for the District of Oregon. 

According to Kitzhaber, shortly before resigning he

discovered that DAS had been archiving emails to and from

his personal email accounts on state servers. Kitzhaber

asserted that DAS was not authorized to archive his emails

from his personal addresses, which he says contain a great

deal of private communication, including privileged

communication with his personal attorneys. He challenged

the subpoena on the grounds that it was unreasonably broad;

a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights; and a violation

of attorney-client privilege.

The district court ruled that Kitzhaber’s communication

with his private attorneys over his personal email addresses

was protected by the attorney-client privilege and should not

be disclosed to the grand jury. The court directed the

government to create a “taint/filter team” to segregate the

protected emails from the remaining content generated in

response to the subpoena and prevent the protected content

from reaching the jury. It ruled against Kitzhaber on every

other issue. The court held that third parties to a subpoena,

like Kitzhaber here, may not challenge the burden of

production required to comply with the subpoena. It also

held that any potential Fourth Amendment violation could be

raised only in a suppression motion filed if Kitzhaber ends up

being indicted and brought to trial. And it held that the

attorney-client privilege did not apply to Kitzhaber’s

communication with government attorneys. The court

therefore declined to quash the subpoena. Kitzhaber timely

appealed.

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 7

II

Kitzhaber argues that the district court should have

quashed the subpoena in its entirety. We agree.

The subpoena includes emails on his personal accounts

that Kitzhaber reasonably expects to remain private, as they

do not concern public business. (Like the district court, we

proceed on the assumption that Kitzhaber did not authorize

DAS to archive the emails from his personal accounts). The

subpoena does not exclude these communications or

otherwise limit the documents demanded to those within the

scope of the government’s legitimate concern in conducting

a thorough investigation of Kitzhaber’s conduct of official

business. As a result, the subpoena is unreasonably

overbroad — analogous, that is, to a general warrant, which

constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth

Amendment. See United States v. Bridges, 344 F.3d 1010,

1016 (9th Cir. 2003). As such, the subpoena, as drafted, may

not be enforced.

A. “The grand jury is, to a degree, an entity independent

of the courts, and both the authority and the obligation of the

courts to control its processes are limited.” In re Grand Jury

Investigation of Hugle, 754 F.2d 863, 864 (9th Cir. 1985). 

But the normal rule of noninterference is “not absolute.” Id.

A subpoena is not automatically valid “merely because the

Constitution does not prohibit it and the material [it seeks] is

not privileged.” United States v. Bergeson, 425 F.3d 1221,

1226 (9th Cir. 2005). Rather, courts may “exercise

supervisory power over the grand jury where there is a clear

potential for a violation of the rights either of a witness or of

a nonwitness, if the violation cannot be corrected at a later

stage.” Hugle, 754 F.2d at 864.

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Here, there is a clear potential for the violation of

Kitzhaber’s rights. “[A]n order for the production of books

and papers may constitute an unreasonable search and seizure

within the 4th Amendment.” Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 76

(1906), abrogated in part on other grounds by Murphy v.

Waterfront Comm’n of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 68

(1964). This can be true “whether under a search warrant or

a subpoena duces tecum.” Id.1 When the government crafts

subpoenas, it must “make a reasonable effort to request only

those documents that are relevant and non-privileged,

consistent with the extent of its knowledge about the matter

under investigation.” In re Horn, 976 F.2d 1314, 1318 (9th

Cir. 1992). A subpoena without such tailoring is “equally

indefensible as a search warrant would be if couched in

similar terms.” Hale, 201 U.S. at 77. Thus, where a grand

jury’s subpoena, given its overbreadth, would itself violate

the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment,

“[j]udicial supervision is properly exercised in such cases to

prevent the wrong before it occurs.”2 United States v.

Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 346 (1974).

1 Recently, the Supreme Court implicitly reaffirmed that subpoenas

trigger Fourth Amendment concerns and may be challenged on Fourth

Amendment grounds. City of Los Angeles, Cal. v. Patel, 135 S. Ct. 2443,

2453 (2015). Patel did not directly involve a challenge to a subpoena. 

But it did indicate that a subpoena recipient’s ability to “move to quash [a]

subpoena before any search takes place” is sufficient to protect his or her

Fourth Amendment rights. Id.

2

In contrast, a witness may not refuse to answer questions before a

grand jury on the grounds that they are based on evidence previously

improperly seized. Calandra, 414 U.S. at 351–53. But in that

circumstance, the wrong has already been “fully accomplished” by the

time the witness is called to testify; the exclusionary rule can be invoked

if such evidence is introduced at trial, but is inapplicable in grand jury

proceedings. Id. at 349–54.

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B. The district court concluded otherwise. It was of the

view that it was obliged to enforce the subpoena as long as

there was a “reasonable possibility that the category of

materials the Government seeks will produce information

relevant to the general subject of the grand jury’s

investigation,” citing United States v. R. Enterprises, Inc.,

498 U.S. 292, 301 (1991). Not so.

R. Enterprises held that where “a subpoena is challenged

on relevancy grounds, the motion to quash must be denied

unless the district court determines that there is no reasonable

possibility that the category of materials the Government

seeks will produce information relevant to the general subject

of the grand jury’s investigation.” 498 U.S. at 301. But R.

Enterprises does not suggest that by self-defining the

“category of materials” sought as broadly as possible, the

government insulates its subpoenas from review. Otherwise,

when the government seeks all material of a broad generic

type that a party possesses — every piece of paper in a

corporation’s files, for example, or, as in this case, all of an

individual’s emails over a several year period — a reasonable

possibility that some of that material would be relevant would

suffice to validate the subpoena, no matter how vast its

sweep, and no matter the degree to which the subpoena would

reach private material of no pertinence to the grand jury’s

inquiry.

The reference to “category of materials” in R. Enterprises

confirms that subpoenas typically designate for production a

discrete “category” of materials. Where one does not, and

there is a broad, identifiable “category of materials the

Government seeks [that] will [not] produce information

relevant to the general subject of the grand jury’s

investigation,” id. — here, for example, material about

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Governor Kitzhaber’s children or medical care — the

subpoena is unreasonably broad.

Our decisions in In re Horn, 976 F.2d 1314 (9th Cir.

1992), and United States v. Bergeson, 425 F.3d 1221 (9th Cir.

2005), confirm this understanding of R. Enterprises. They

make clear that a subpoena may be quashed when no effort is

made to tailor the request to the investigation, even if some

fraction of the material the subpoena seeks is relevant. See

Bergeson, 425 F.3d at 1225–26; Horn, 976 F.2d at 1318–19.

The government’s subpoena in this case is much broader

than the subpoena we rejected in Horn. In Horn, the

subpoena at issue sought all information regarding the

financial transactions of a lawyer’s clients. 976 F.2d at 1319. 

Here, there is no subject matter limitation whatsoever on the

documents sought. The subpoena seeks, among other things,

all of Kitzhaber’s e-mail communication over several years,

with no limitation on the content, senders, or recipients of the

e-mails. As Kitzhaber points out, the subpoena would net, for

instance, “emails between [himself] and his son’s physicians

or teachers.”

Notably, the government attached to the subpoena a nonexhaustive list of the kinds of documents that might be

included in the data it sought. But the subpoena explicitly did

not limit itself to that material, so that list did not narrow the

scope of the subpoena itself. At the same time, by indicating

the government’s particular investigatory goals, the list

confirms that a narrowing of the subpoena in accord with that

list would not compromise the investigation.

Because the government did not in any manner tailor its

request to relevant material, the subpoena was unreasonably

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 11

broad and within the district court’s supervisory power, and

responsibility, to quash.3

C. This conclusion is reinforced by the nature of the

emails caught up in the exceedingly broad subpoena. Stored

in his personal accounts, many of the messages — or so

Kitzhaber avers — do not concern official state business in

any way, and some concern particularly private matters,

including communications about medical issues and

Kitzhaber’s children.

The combination of the subpoena’s vast overbreadth and

inclusion of messages as to which Kitzhaber has a reasonable

expectation of privacy implicates privacy interests similar to

those triggered by the issuance of a general warrant. As

currently framed, the subpoena will, if complied with, allow

federal government agents seeking out the messages that bear

relevance to their investigation to peruse all manner of private

communications that do not. See generally United States v.

Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 621 F.3d 1162, 1176 (9th

Cir. 2010) (en banc).

We have previously held that email should be treated like

physical mail for purposes of determining whether an

individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its

content. United States v. Forrester, 512 F.3d 500, 511 (9th

3 Kitzhaber also argues the subpoena should be quashed as unreasonable

under Federal Rule ofCriminal Procedure 17(c)(2), which states that “[o]n

motion made promptly, the court may quash or modify the subpoena if

compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive.” It is not immediately

clear from Rule 17(c)(2)’s text whether it can be invoked by an

intervening third party to quash a subpoena. We need not reach the issue

of Rule 17(c)(2)’s applicability here, as we hold that the subpoena should

here be quashed under the district court’s general supervisory power.

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Cir. 2008). While an email’s addressing information is

visible to third parties and therefore not protected, emails also

contain “content that the sender presumes will be read only

by the intended recipient.” Id.

We have also noted that electronic storage devices such

as laptops “contain the most intimate details of our lives:

financial records, confidential business documents, medical

records and private emails,” and held that “[t]hese records are

expected to be kept private and this expectation is one that

society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.” United States

v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 964 (9th Cir. 2013) (citation

omitted). The Supreme Court, too, has emphasized recently

the ability of digital troves to contain “[t]he sum of an

individual’s private life,” and the corresponding need for our

jurisprudence to reflect the changing technological landscape. 

Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2489 (2014). Personal

email can, and often does, contain all the information once

found in the “papers and effects” mentioned explicitly in the

Fourth Amendment. Kitzhaber thus has a strong claim to a

legitimate expectation of privacy in his personal email, given

the private information it likely contains.

DAS’s current possession of the emails does not vitiate

that claim. “[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not

places.” United States v. Davis, 332 F.3d 1163, 1167 (9th

Cir. 2003) (citation omitted). Kitzhaber’s interests therefore

attach to “the thing[s] seized,” not merely to the place where

they are located. Id. As we held in Forrester, emails are to

be treated as closed, addressed packages for expectation-ofprivacy purposes. 512 F.3d at 511. And a person “does not

forfeit [his] expectation of privacymerely because [a private]

container is located in a place that is not controlled

exclusively by the container’s owner.” United States v.

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Monghur, 588 F.3d 975, 978 (9th Cir. 2009) (citation

omitted).4

The Fourth Amendment bars searches of closed

containers even if they are not in their owners’ possession. 

Davis, 332 F.3d at 1167; United States v. Fultz, 146 F.3d

1102, 1105 (9th Cir. 1998). Where a third party comes into

possession of a closed container accidentally, the Fourth

Amendment bars the government from examining the

contents of the container beyond “the extent that [it] had

already been examined by third parties.” Walter v. United

States, 447 U.S. 649, 656 (1980) (plurality opinion).5

Kitzhaber asserts, and the government does not dispute, that

he and DAS came to an agreement that his personal email

accounts would be segregated on Oregon’s servers and not

distributed “without a court order or other legal process.” 

There is no evidence in the record, and no assertion made by

the government, that DAS or anyone else has opened or

examined the contents of the email on Kitzhaber’s personal

accounts. Kitzhaber’s claim to a reasonable expectation of

4

It is true that “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in

information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” Forrester, 512 F.3d

at 509 (quoting Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743–44 (1979)). In this

circumstance, however, we are assuming, as did the district court, that, as

he maintains, Kitzhaber did not mean to turn his private email over to

DAS.

5 United States v. Joseph distinguished Walter and held that “[f]ederal

examination of evidence in the state’s possession does not constitute an

independent search requiring the execution of a search warrant.” 829 F.2d

724, 728 (9th Cir. 1987). But Joseph “stress[ed] that the records were

seized by the DA’s office pursuant to a valid search warrant.” Id. at 726. 

Here, in contrast, no warrant supported the initial archiving of the email. 

Walter, which dealt with mail accidentally delivered to a third party, is the

more apposite case. See 447 U.S. at 651.

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privacy in the contents of the emails is therefore not

undermined by Oregon’s possession of the emails.

Kitzhaber’s privacy claim lacks force, however, with

respect to any emails transmitted through his personal email

accounts but concerning official business. Oregon’s public

records law, O.R.S. § 192.410 et seq., which applies to “every

state officer,” grants a general right to the public to inspect

“any writing that contains information relating to the conduct

of the public’s business.” §§ 192.410, 192.420. Kitzhaber

has acknowledged that he instructed DAS to archive emails

in his “official” Gmail account to comply with public records

laws. The government has also offered evidence that the

State of Oregon’s training for employees informs them that

emails on personal accounts regarding state business are not

exempt from public records laws.

Consequently, whether or not Kitzhaber had a subjective

expectation of privacy as to emails on his private accounts

relating to official business, any such expectation is not a

reasonable one. “[C]ompliance with state open records laws

. . . bear[s] on the legitimacy of a[] [public] employee’s

privacy expectation.” City of Ontario, Cal. v. Quon, 560 U.S.

746, 758 (2010). While the existence of an open records law

may not be conclusive in all cases, it is conclusive here. The

public interest in open and transparent governance is at its

zenith when it comes to the state’s top elected official and his

communication with senior advisers regarding official

business. Even if state officials expect to evade those laws

through the use of personal email addresses, that expectation

is not a protected privacy interest.

Kitzhaber therefore had a reasonable expectation of

privacy regarding emails on his personal accounts unrelated

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 15

to official business. Because the subpoena was in no way

tailored to the investigations being conducted, it included

those purely private emails. Again, the district court had the

supervisory power, and responsibility, to quash the vastly

overbroad subpoena, and thereby prevent the trampling of

Kitzhaber’s reasonable expectation of privacy.

III

Kitzhaber also challenges the subpoena as violating

attorney-client privilege. He claims the privilege protects

both his communications with his personal attorneys and

specific communications with government attorneys

regarding potential conflicts of interest.

Kitzhaber is correct, and the government does not dispute,

that his communication with privately-retained attorneys is

protected by the attorney-client privilege and should not be

turned over to the grand jury. See, e.g., Horn, 976 F.2d at

1318–19. But, for several reasons, we conclude that

Kitzhaber may not invoke the attorney-client privilege for his

communications with government attorneys regarding

conflicts of interests or ethics violations. Whatever privilege

such communications may implicate is held by the State of

Oregon, not Kitzhaber personally.

First, Kitzhaber maintains that the privilege over the

conflict of interest and ethical obligations conversations

should attach to him personally, because any liability

resulting from breaking those obligations would be personal. 

The potential for personal liability, Kitzhaber maintains,

should have indicated to the government attorneys he

consulted that he was seeking personal legal advice. Also,

because of the potential for personal liability, Kitzhaber

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argues, he himself had a reasonable expectation that his

conversation with government attorneys would be protected

by the attorney-client privilege.

Much uncertainty surrounds the reach of the attorneyclient privilege in the context of investigations into public

officials. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Investigation, 399 F.3d

527 (2d Cir. 2005); In re Witness Before the Special Grand

Jury 2000-2, 288 F.3d 289 (7th Cir. 2002); In re Lindsey,

158 F.3d 1263 (D.C. Cir. 1998); In re Grand Jury Subpoena

Duces Tecum, 112 F.3d 910 (8th Cir. 1997). That

uncertainty, however, has concerned cases in which an

attorney-client privilege with a government lawyer was

invoked by a governmental entity, or by an individual in his

or her official capacity. Where courts have acknowledged the

attorney-client privilege to apply to conversations between

government officials and government lawyers, they have

construed the privilege to mean that “the Government may

invoke the attorney-client privilege,” not that officeholders

in their personal capacity may invoke the privilege. United

States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U.S. 162, 170 (2011)

(emphasis added); see also In re Grand Jury Investigation,

399 F.3d at 534–35 & n.3. In no instance, as far as we are

aware, has a former officeholder successfully claimed that a

government staff lawyer discussing a matter relating to

official business was representing the officeholder personally

during a conversation had while both were government

employees.6

6 A different scenario arises when a government attorney is provided by

the government specifically for the purpose of representing a public

employee sued in her personal capacity. See, e.g., Restatement (Third) of

the Law Governing Lawyers § 74 cmt. d (Am. Law Inst. 2000). In that

situation, where “government attorneys stand in the shoes of private

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 17

Moreover, a consultation concerning conflict-of-interest

or ethics laws is a consultation about an office holder’s

official actions and obligations. For example, when a judge

considers whether a statute or code of conduct requires that

she recuse from a case because of personal financial interests

or the involvement of a relative or friend, what is at stake is

precisely how she is to carry out judicial obligations. 

Similarly, an executive officer who consults with a

government attorney concerning whether to let a certain

contract go to a person with whom he has business dealings,

or to a relative, is seeking advice about carrying out his

official duties.

Consideration of the possible personal sanctions for noncompliance with such legal obligations is likely to be an

integral part of such discussions; sanctions are imposed

precisely to induce compliance. But that does not mean that

during those conversations, the government lawyers are

acting as the personal attorneys for the officeholders. 

Government lawyers, like the elected officials they assist, are

public servants, and their client is the government, not

officeholders in their personal capacities. “[G]overnment

lawyers have responsibilities and obligations different from

those facing members of the private bar. While the latter are

appropriately concerned first and foremost with protecting

their clients . . . government lawyers have a higher,

competing duty to act in the public interest.” In re Special

Grand Jury, 288 F.3d at 293. The public interest may well

include advising government officials about their ethical

counsel,” In re Lindsey, 158 F.3d at 1269, whether and when the

government employee may invoke the privilege in their individual

capacity may require a different analysis. We express no view of that

scenario here.

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duties; that the public’s interest partially overlaps with those

officials’ private interests does not convert government

attorneys into those officials’ private attorneys.

Kitzhaber maintains, however, that officeholders will “be

less likely to engage in full and frank discussions with agency

counsel about the facts underlying a potential conflict” if the

privilege does not attach to officeholders in their personal

capacity. Perhaps so. But the State of Oregon has an

exceedingly strong interest in keeping conversations

concerning conflicts of interests between its lawyers and

other officials confidential to ensure candor, and therefore in

invoking the attorney-client privilege as to such

conversations.7

Further, Kitzhaber could have hired his own lawyer for

consultation about his conflict-of-interest concerns, and

indeed did hire his own lawyer to represent him in an ethics

inquiry. Generally, “[a]n official who fears he or she may

have violated the criminal law and wishes to speak with an

attorney in confidence should speak with a private attorney,

not a government attorney.” In re Grand Jury Subpoena

7

In a letter submitted after oral argument in this case, the State informed

us that it has asserted and continues to assert the attorney-client privilege

in the U.S. Attorney’s investigation. Where government officials assert

the attorney-client privilege during criminal investigations into

government misconduct, the scope of the privilege is not clearly

established. See In re Grand Jury Investigation, 399 F.3d 527 (2d Cir.

2005); In re Witness Before the Special Grand Jury 2000-2, 288 F.3d 289

(7th Cir. 2002); In re Lindsey, 158 F.3d 1263 (D.C. Cir. 1998); In re

Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum, 112 F.3d 910 (8th Cir. 1997). We

express no opinion on the proper scope of Oregon’s asserted privilege in

this decision, as the State of Oregon is not a party before us and Kitzhaber

may not invoke the privilege in his personal capacity.

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 19

Duces Tecum, 112 F.3d at 921. As to any communications

with a private lawyer, Kitzhaber must “receive[] the full

protection of the attorney-client and work product privileges

in his dealings with personal counsel.” In re Lindsey,

158 F.3d at 1278.

We are thus unpersuaded by Kitzhaber’s arguments that

his conversations with state attorneys regarding state conflictof-interest laws are protected by a privilege that he may assert

in his personal capacity. Kitzhaber’s communication with his

private attorneys should receive all the protections normally

afforded by the attorney-client privilege. But he may not

himself invoke the privilege to protect his communication

with attorneys for the State of Oregon.

IV

The parties dispute the proper procedure for assuring

compliance with any limitations on production of documents. 

In the district court, Kitzhaber argued that his lawyers should

be able to review his personal emails before they are released

to the government, to determine which were protected by the

attorney-client privilege. The government asked the district

court to review Kitzhaber’s emails in camera. The district

court took a third course — it held that the documents should

be turned over to the government’s “taint/filter team” under

a standard protocol designed to remove any privileged

communication before passing the non-protected information

along to the prosecutorial team.

The district court considered these possible procedures in

the context of the very narrow limitation on production it

recognized — that communications between Kitzhaber and

his private attorneys, but no others, were exempt from

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20 IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA

production. But we are remanding with instructions to quash

the government’s present subpoena in its entirety. As a

result, no filtering issues will immediately arise. We therefore

do not address whether the district court’s adoption of the

“taint/filter” team protocol was appropriate for the limited

purpose for which it was imposed.

We fully expect the government will issue a subpoena

tailored in accord with this opinion. If so, issues are likely to

arise concerning the means of segregating and producing the

material requested by such a proper subpoena. But the

parties, and the district court, have had no opportunity to

address the appropriate segregating mechanism for a properly

drawn subpoena. We will not do so in the first instance.

Given the parties’ expressed views, however, a few

comments are in order. With a substantively tailored

subpoena, the problem of separating the messages covered by

the subpoena from those not covered becomes much more

complex than the limited segregation issue addressed by the

district court. It will not be enough simply to look at the

sender or recipient of Kitzhaber’s emails to determine

whether they possibly deal with the subjects covered by the

subpoena. Instead, whoever is doing the sorting will have to

look at and consider in detail the content of the emails.

The situation will be further complicated by the fact that

the documents are in the possession of a third party, the State

of Oregon. Kitzhaber objects to Oregon, another government

entity, combing through his private emails. And the state

undoubtedly would prefer not to do so because of the burden

imposed. Yet, because Oregon possesses the emails, the

usual process, in which the person to whom a subpoena is

directed and his attorney sort through the documents and

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IN RE GRAND JURY SUBPOENA 21

produce those called for, has no direct application. Without

limiting the possible procedures for segregating the

documents to be produced, we note that one option, not

mentioned by the parties, would be engaging a neutral third

party to sort Kitzhaber’s emails. See Comprehensive Drug

Testing, 621 F.3d at 1179 (Kozinski, J., concurring).

REVERSED and REMANDED for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion.

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