Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-03072/USCOURTS-caDC-07-03072-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Grand Jury

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 13, 2008 Decided June 6, 2008

No. 07-3072

IN RE: GRAND JURY (ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE)

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 07mc00197)

Barry Coburn argued the cause for appellant. With him on

the briefs was Gloria Solomon.

Patricia A. Heffernan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Jeffrey A. Taylor,

U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III and Virginia Cheatham,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, and HENDERSON and

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: A grand jury is investigating a

psychiatrist who may have billed Medicaid for services he did

not provide. In an attempt to exonerate his client, the doctor’s

attorney showed patient records to the Assistant U.S. Attorney

and FBI special agent investigating the matter. The government

made and kept copies of these documents. The originals

remained in the possession of the attorney. Several days later,

USCA Case #07-3072 Document #1120287 Filed: 06/06/2008 Page 1 of 3
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the government served a subpoena on the attorney, seeking the

original documents for forensic ink analysis in order to

determine whether they were created at a later date than

indicated on the documents. The doctor joined the attorney’s

motion to quash, claiming that attorney-client privilege

protected the documents. The district court denied the motion.

We affirm.

Attorney-client privilege applies to a document a client

transfers to his attorney “for the purpose of obtaining legal

advice.” Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 404-05 (1976).

“When the client himself would be privileged from production

of the document . . . as exempt from self-incrimination, the

attorney having possession of the document is not bound to

produce.” Id. at 404 (quoting 8 J.WIGMORE,EVIDENCE § 2307,

p. 592 (McNaughton rev. 1961)). Here, the district court

assumed without deciding that the doctor gave his records to his

attorney for the purpose of obtaining legal advice. The court

then held that requiring the doctor’s attorney to produce these

records would not violate the doctor’s privilege against selfincrimination. On appeal, the doctor and the government

dispute whether this holding was correct, but they ignore a

question the government raised before the district court: whether

attorney-client privilege applies to the documents at all.

Sharing the doctor’s records with the government destroyed

whatever attorney-client privilege might have attached to them.

See In re Sealed Case, 877 F.2d 976, 980 (D.C. Cir. 1989);

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE LAW GOVERNING LAWYERS § 79

(2000). There is no argument that the documents were shown

to the government without the doctor’s approval. It is of no

consequence that the doctor might have initially given the

documents to his attorney for the purpose of obtaining legal

advice. 

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Because the doctor has not met his burden of showing that

the attorney-client privilege applies to his records, see In re

Lindsey, 158 F.3d 1263, 1270 (D.C. Cir. 1998), it also is of no

consequence whether he would have had a Fifth Amendment

privilege not to produce the documents if they were in his

possession. The subpoena was directed not at the doctor, but at

his attorney. “Documents transferred from the accused to his

attorney are ‘obtainable without personal compulsion on the

accused,’ and hence the accused’s ‘Fifth Amendment privilege

is . . . not violated by enforcement of the [subpoena] directed

toward [his] attorneys. This is true whether or not the

Amendment would have barred a subpoena directing the

[accused] to produce the documents while they were in his

hands.’” In re Sealed Case, 162 F.3d 670, 675 (D.C. Cir. 1998)

(quoting Fisher, 425 U.S. at 398, 397) (alterations as in Sealed

Case).

Affirmed.

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