Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-03134/USCOURTS-caDC-03-03134-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Navron Ponds
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify the

Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made before the

bound volumes go to press. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 13, 2006 Decided July 14, 2006

No. 03-3134

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

NAVRON PONDS,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with

No. 03-3135

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 02cr00495-01)

(No. 03cr00283-01)

Ketanji B. Jackson, Assistant Federal Public Defender,

argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 1 of 26
2

John P. Mannarino, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese, III and Mark H.

Dubester, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: ROGERS, TATEL and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: This appeal challenges the

government’s use of documents produced by Navron Ponds

pursuant to a grant of immunity under 18 U.S.C. § 6002. Ponds’

appeal of his convictions for tax evasion and fraud requires the

court to address the breadth of that immunity for an act of

production that, in its testimonial character, falls somewhere

between the response to a fishing expedition addressed in United

States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000), and the production of

documents whose existence was a “foregone conclusion” in

Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391 (1976). Because the

government has failed to show with reasonable particularity that

it knew of the existence and location of most of the subpoenaed

documents, we hold that Ponds’ act of production was

sufficiently testimonial to implicate his right against selfincrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Although the government, to some extent, violated its immunity

agreement with Ponds by impermissibly using his selfincriminating testimony and its derivative evidence, questions

remain regarding the precise nature of its use and whether the

constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of conviction and remand

the case to the district court to determine the extent of the

government’s impermissible use and whether that use was

harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 2 of 26
3

I.

In 1996, Navron Ponds, a criminal defense lawyer, agreed

to represent a drug dealer named Jerome Harris. See, e.g.,

United States v. Harris, 176 F.3d 476 (4th Cir. 1999). As a

retainer, Harris’s mother agreed to give Ponds a white 1991

Mercedes Benz 500SL, which Ponds registered in his sister’s

name. Harris pled guilty. At his sentencing, the district court

asked Harris about the whereabouts of the Mercedes for

forfeiture purposes. Ponds failed to inform the court that he had

the car. In 2000, when the United States Attorney’s Office for

the District of Maryland learned this from Harris, it began a

grand jury investigation of Ponds’ acquisition of the Mercedes

and his failure to reveal his possession of the car to the court,

focusing on potential charges of contempt of court, obstruction

of justice, and money laundering. See United States v. Ponds,

290 F. Supp. 2d 71, 74 (D.D.C. 2003). 

Maryland Assistant United States Attorney (“MD-AUSA”)

Sandra Wilkinson executed a search warrant for Harris’s jail cell

to obtain the retainer agreement discussing the Mercedes.

Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents went to

Ponds’ apartment complex, Albemarle House, looking for the

car. Parked outside were the Mercedes, and in another parking

space rented by Ponds, a Porsche with the vanity license plate “I

OBJECT.” According to apartment personnel, Ponds drove the

Mercedes and his sister, Laura Ponds Pelzer, drove the Porsche.

MD-AUSA Wilkinson issued a subpoena duces tecum ordering

Ponds to produce seven categories of documents and the

Mercedes. When Ponds expressed his intent to invoke his Fifth

Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Wilkinson

revised the subpoena to omit requests that Ponds actually

produce the car and that he produce financial and tax records,

and filed a motion pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6003 for a judicial

order authorizing act-of-production immunity under 18 U.S.C.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 3 of 26
4

§ 6002. The subpoena made six demands of Ponds to produce

“any and all documents” from 1996 forward:

1. Referencing use, ownership, possession, custody

and/or control of a white Mercedes Benz . . .; 

2. That refer or relate to payment of legal fees by or on

behalf of Jerome Harris whether by cash, currency, or

some other form of payment;

3. That refer or relate to any vehicles in the custody or

control of Jerome Harris if access to that vehicle was

provided to you by any means, direct or indirect; and,

4. That refer or relate to Sloan Solomon, Christine Privott

[Harris’s mother] or Laura P. Pelzer [Ponds’ sister];

5. Any and all correspondence between the Law Offices

of Navron Ponds [and courts and prosecutors] in the

matter of U.S. v. Jerome Harris, PJM 96-0269;

6. Records of employees of the law Office of Navron

Ponds in the time frame of 1996 to the present.

The district court granted the immunity request and ordered

Ponds to produce the subpoenaed documents. 

Armed with act-of-production immunity, Ponds appeared

before the grand jury and produced approximately 300 pages of

documents. The documents included records showing that: (1)

the Mercedes and Porsche were registered in the name of Ponds’

sister; (2) Ponds had financial accounts with his sister; (3) Ponds

and his sister sold a Georgia property they had jointly owned;

(4) Ponds possessed money order receipts used to pay for

various services, mostly involving the Mercedes; and (5) Ponds

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 4 of 26
5

had a health insurance document indicating he had purchased

insurance for himself and Magdalene Alexander. Ponds also

testified before the grand jury, responding to the prosecutors’

questions about the document production, including affirming

that the health insurance document was responsive to the

subpoena request for documents regarding his employees.

Magdalene “Maggie” Alexander, Ponds’ employee, was then

called before the grand jury, where she testified about many of

the produced documents and in detail about the process by

which she helped Ponds produce them. 

Soon after Ponds responded to the subpoena duces tecum,

the Maryland United States Attorney’s Office filed an ex parte

application it had prepared before the subpoena response with

the Maryland federal district court to authorize the Internal

Revenue Service (“IRS”) to disclose Ponds’ 1996 and 1997 tax

returns. The application was granted, and the IRS reported that

Ponds had not filed tax returns in those years. Because Ponds

was a resident of the District of Columbia, the Maryland

prosecutors contacted the United States Attorney’s Office for the

District of Columbia about conducting a tax investigation of

Ponds. These contacts involved several meetings and the

transfer of documents produced by Ponds and of Maryland

grand jury transcripts to DC-AUSA Mark Dubester and IRS

Special Agent Nancy Becker. 

The investigation continued, and in 2001, DC-AUSA

Dubester applied for search warrants on the basis of an affidavit

provided by Agent Becker that included information first

learned in the Maryland grand jury. Based on those

applications, the D.C. United States Attorney’s Office secured

warrants to search Ponds’ home and office, where Agent Becker

seized six boxes of documents. The documents revealed that

Ponds had used a tax preparer, and the preparer’s records were

subpoenaed, uncovering further details about Ponds’ financial

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 5 of 26
6

1

 In addition to the counts on which Ponds was indicted,

Ponds was convicted of five “failure-to-file” counts which were

charged by information. See 26 U.S.C. § 7203. The district court

vacated those convictions without prejudice to a government motion

to reinstate them if the convictions at issue here are vacated on appeal.

affairs. With these materials and others subpoenaed from

financial institutions, Ponds was indicted in the District of

Columbia on five counts of tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. § 7201,

one count of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, and one count

of fraud in the first degree under 22 D.C. Code §§ 3821(a),

3822(a)(1). 

Ponds filed a pretrial motion for a hearing pursuant to

Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972), that would force

the government to “demonstrate that the charges in this matter

and the evidence it proposes to use . . . at trial do not derive

directly or indirectly from Mr. Ponds’s immunized testimony

and production of documents.” The district court conducted an

evidentiary hearing at which it heard testimony from Agent

Becker and MD-AUSA Wilkinson, and accepted proffered

testimony from DC-AUSA Dubester. See Ponds, 290 F. Supp.

2d at 73. The district court denied Ponds’ motion to dismiss the

indictment. Id. The jury convicted Ponds on all counts,1

 and the

district court, upon denying Ponds’ motion for reconsideration

of the Kastigar ruling or for a new trial, sentenced Ponds to

twenty months imprisonment and restitution to the federal and

District governments. Ponds appeals. 

II.

18 U.S.C. § 6002 provides that:

no testimony or other information compelled under [an

immunity] order (or any information directly or

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 6 of 26
7

indirectly derived from such testimony or other

information) may be used against the witness in any

criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving

a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with

the order.

This federal witness immunity statute has a constitutional

dimension, as the Supreme Court in Kastigar, 406 U.S. 441,

held that § 6002 “immunity from use and derivative use is

coextensive with the scope of the [Fifth Amendment] privilege

against self-incrimination” in that “[i]t prohibits the

prosecutorial authorities from using the compelled testimony in

any respect.” Id. at 453. Thus, at issue in document production

cases in which a witness with § 6002 immunity is subsequently

prosecuted are two basic questions: (1) Was the defendant’s act

of producing the documents sufficiently testimonial that the

Fifth Amendment privilege is implicated? (2) If so, did the

government violate the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights

(and the court order granting him immunity) by using sources of

information derived from the immunized testimony in the

prosecution? See Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 29-30. 

The Fifth Amendment declares that “[n]o person . . . shall

be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against

himself.” U.S. CONST. amend. V. At one point in our history,

this declaration was taken to mean that the government could

not compel the production of private papers. See Boyd v. United

States, 116 U.S. 616, 634-35 (1886). In 1976, the Supreme

Court changed course, and it is now a “settled proposition that

a person may be required to produce specific documents even

though they contain incriminating assertions of fact or belief

because the creation of those documents was not ‘compelled’

within the meaning of the privilege.” Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 35-

36 (summarizing Fisher, 425 U.S 391). “[T]he act of producing

documents in response to a subpoena,” however, “may have a

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 7 of 26
8

compelled testimonial aspect” in that the act “may implicitly

communicate ‘statements of fact,’” such as the witness’s

admission “that the papers existed, were in his possession or

control, and were authentic.” Id. at 36 & n.19 (quoting United

States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605, 613 & n.11 (1984)). Whether the

act of producing evidence in response to a subpoena is

sufficiently testimonial that the Fifth Amendment applies

“depend[s] on the facts and circumstances of particular cases.”

Fisher, 425 U.S. at 410.

Two Supreme Court cases provide the framework for our

analysis of the facts and circumstances of this case. In Fisher,

425 U.S. 391, the Court considered two cases in which IRS

agents visited and interviewed taxpayers under investigation for

tax violations. See id. at 393-94. After the interviews, the

taxpayers obtained from their accountants documents used in

preparing their tax returns and gave the documents to their

lawyers. See id. at 394. Once the government discovered that

the lawyers had the documents, it sought to subpoena the

records. In one case, its subpoena demanded the accountant’s

workpapers pertaining to the taxpayer’s books for three years,

the retained copies of the taxpayer’s returns for those years, and

the retained copies of reports and other correspondence between

the accountant and the taxpayer during those years. Id. After

disavowing any Fifth Amendment protection for the contents of

the documents themselves, the Court nevertheless recognized

the testimonial aspect of the act of production because

“[c]ompliance with the subpoena tacitly concedes the existence

of the papers demanded and their possession or control by the

taxpayer,” as well as “the taxpayer’s belief that the papers are

those described in the subpoena.” Id. at 410. Under the

circumstances of that case, however, the Court concluded it was

“doubtful that implicitly admitting the existence and possession

of the papers rises to the level of testimony within the protection

of the Fifth Amendment” because “[t]he existence and location

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 8 of 26
9

of the papers are a foregone conclusion and the taxpayer adds

little or nothing to the sum total of the Government’s

information by conceding that he in fact has the papers.” Id. at

411. Because the subpoena was more a question of “surrender”

than of “testimony,” the Court held that “no constitutional rights

are touched.” Id. (quoting In re Harris, 221 U.S. 274, 279

(1911)).

Hubbell provides the counterpoint to Fisher. In Hubbell,

the Supreme Court held that Hubbell’s act of producing over

13,000 documents in response to a broad subpoena was

sufficiently testimonial to implicate the Fifth Amendment

because “the prosecutor needed [Hubbell]’s assistance both to

identify potential sources of information and to produce those

sources.” 530 U.S. at 41. Some of the broadest demands of that

subpoena asked for all documents referring to “any direct or

indirect sources of money or other things of value received by

or provided to Webster Hubbell” and “Webster Hubbell’s

schedule of activities.” Id. at 46-47. The Court held that “the

collection and production of the materials demanded was

tantamount to answering a series of interrogatories asking a

witness to disclose the existence and location of particular

documents fitting certain broad descriptions,” id. at 41, in which

it was “unquestionably necessary for [Hubbell] to make

extensive use of ‘the contents of his own mind’ in identifying

the hundreds of documents responsive to the requests in the

subpoena,” id. at 43. The government claimed that it was a

“foregone conclusion” that Hubbell would possess the

subpoenaed documents because “a businessman such as

[Hubbell] will always possess general business and tax records

that fall within the broad categories described in this subpoena,”

but the Court rejected that argument as “overbroad.” Id. at 45.

 

The Supreme Court distinguished the circumstances in

Hubbell from those in Fisher: “While in Fisher the Government

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 9 of 26
10

already knew that the documents were in the attorneys’

possession and could independently confirm their existence and

authenticity through the accountants who created them, here the

Government has not shown that it had any prior knowledge of

either the existence or the whereabouts” of the produced

documents. Id. at 44-45. Whether an act of production is

sufficiently testimonial to implicate the Fifth Amendment,

therefore, depends on the government’s knowledge regarding

the documents before they are produced. In Fisher, the

government knew of the existence of a set of documents relating

to defined topics that were in the hands of the taxpayers’

attorneys; in Hubbell, the government could not show its prior

awareness of the existence or location of the produced

documents. When Hubbell was heard in this court, we described

the inquiry this way:

[T]he government must establish its knowledge of the

existence, possession, and authenticity of the

subpoenaed documents with ‘reasonable particularity’

before the communication inherent in the act of

production can be considered a foregone conclusion.

In making this assessment, though, the focus must

remain upon the degree to which a subpoena “invades

the dignity of the human mind,” and on the quantum of

information as to the existence, possession, or

authenticity of the documents conveyed via the act of

production. 

United States v. Hubbell, 167 F.3d 552, 579-80 (D.C. Cir. 1999)

(citations omitted). Although the Supreme Court did not adopt

the “reasonable particularity” standard in affirming our decision,

it emphasized that the applicability of the Fifth Amendment

turns on the level of the government’s prior knowledge of the

existence and location of the produced documents. See Hubbell,

530 U.S. at 44-45. Post-Hubbell, another circuit has applied the

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 10 of 26
11

reasonable particularity standard to determine whether an act of

production is sufficiently testimonial to implicate the Fifth

Amendment. See In re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated April 18,

2003, 383 F.3d 905, 910 (9th Cir. 2004). Because that standard

conceptualizes the Supreme Court’s focus in a useful way, so do

we.

Once it is clear that an act of production is sufficiently

testimonial to be protected by the Fifth Amendment’s privilege

against self-incrimination, the question remains how the

government may use the compelled testimony and information

derived therefrom in a later prosecution of the witness. In

Kastigar, 406 U.S. 441, the Supreme Court held that § 6002

“immunity from use and derivative use is coextensive with the

scope of the privilege against self-incrimination” in that “[i]t

prohibits the prosecutorial authorities from using the compelled

testimony in any respect.” Id. at 453. Therefore, when a person

accorded § 6002 immunity is subsequently prosecuted, the

government bears “the affirmative duty to prove that the

evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source

wholly independent of the compelled testimony.” Id. at 460.

With oral testimony, the bar on derivative use is easy to

imagine. For example, if a murder suspect who has been

granted immunity is called before a grand jury and asked

whether he committed a murder and where the murder weapon

is, his testimony may not be used against him in a criminal trial.

In addition, the government may not use his testimony to

retrieve the weapon for use against the witness at trial. Even if

the government introduced the weapon without indicating that

it learned of its location from the defendant’s immunized grand

jury testimony, only using fingerprints or DNA testing to link

the weapon to the defendant, the weapon would still be barred

because it was “directly or indirectly derived from” compelled

testimony. If the police simply happened upon the weapon

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 11 of 26
12

2

 This theory states that “the act of production shields the

witness from the use of any information (resulting from his subpoena

response) beyond what the prosecution would receive if the documents

appeared in the grand jury room or in his office unsolicited and

unmarked, like manna from heaven.” Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 602

(Williams, J., dissenting). 

through an ongoing investigation, however, the weapon could be

used against the witness because it was “derived from a

legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled

testimony.” Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 460; see Hubbell, 167 F.3d at

583-84.

With act-of-production immunity, the key question is

whether, despite the compelled testimony implicit in the

production, the government remains free to use the contents of

the (non-testimonial) produced documents. In Hubbell, the

Supreme Court rejected the “manna from heaven” theory2

 by

holding the use of the contents of produced documents to be a

barred derivative use of the compelled testimonial act of

production. The Court did so by stating that it “cannot accept

the Government’s submission that [Hubbell’s] immunity did not

preclude its derivative use of the produced documents” as it

“was only through [Hubbell]’s truthful reply to the subpoena

that the Government received the incriminating documents of

which it made ‘substantial use . . . in the investigation that led to

the indictment.’” Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 42-43 (emphasis added).

In context, these statements indicate that the Supreme Court

understands the contents of the documents to be off-limits

because they are a derivative use of the compelled testimony

regarding the existence, location, and possession of the

documents. As stated by this court in Hubbell: “If the

government did not have a reasonably particular knowledge of

subpoenaed documents’ actual existence, let alone their

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 12 of 26
13

possession by the subpoenaed party, and cannot prove

knowledge of their existence through any independent means,

Kastigar forbids the derivative use of the information contained

therein against the immunized party.” Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 585

(emphasis added). Or explained another way, the contents of the

documents cannot be used against the witness because they are

not “derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the

compelled testimony.” Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 460. This

approach treats documents revealed in an immunized act of

production just like the weapon revealed pursuant to immunized

testimony. If the existence or location of the item was revealed

through compelled testimony, the item is derivative of the

testimony and may not be used by the government against the

witness-defendant.

 

After determining what may not be used against the

witness-defendant, the further question remains how that

information may not be used. The direct introduction of

immunized information as evidence at trial would be a

prohibited “use.” See Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 41. But § 6002 goes

further, “provid[ing] a sweeping proscription of any uses, direct

or indirect, of the compelled testimony and any information

derived therefrom,” functioning as “a comprehensive safeguard,

barring the use of compelled testimony as an ‘investigatory

lead,’ and also barring the use of any evidence obtained by

focusing investigation on a witness as a result of his compelled

disclosures.” Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 460 (footnotes omitted). In

North v. United States, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C. Cir. 1990), this court

noted that “Kastigar does not prohibit simply ‘a whole lot of

use,’ or ‘excessive use,’ or ‘primary use’ of compelled

testimony. It prohibits ‘any use,’ direct or indirect.” Id. at 861.

Accordingly, this court held that the government’s use of

immunized testimony to refresh the recollection of a grand jury

witness constituted a “use” of the compelled testimony. See id.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 13 of 26
14

Taken together, the bar on the use of information derived

from a testimonial act of production by a witness with § 6002

immunity and the breadth of that bar create real risks for

prosecutors planning on prosecuting those whom they subpoena.

“The decision to seek use immunity necessarily involves a

balancing of the Government’s interest in obtaining information

against the risk that immunity will frustrate the Government’s

attempts to prosecute the subject of the investigation.” Doe, 465

U.S. at 616. That risk was manifested in the government’s

prosecution of Ponds.

III.

The central question on appeal is whether the district court’s

reliance on “a sharp distinction” between the testimonial aspect

of producing documents and the contents of the documents, see

Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 79, is contrary to an essential holding

of the Supreme Court in Hubbell that the use of the contents of

documents may be a barred derivative use of the testimony

inherent in the immunized act of producing those documents.

Throughout its opinion, the district court emphasizes its

understanding that § 6002 immunity is limited to the act of

production and does not extend to the contents of documents.

See id. at 80-81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91. Ponds contends that the

district court has returned to the repudiated manna-from-heaven

rationale by seeming to think that nothing is amiss if the

prosecution uses the contents of the documents without

reference to the testimony inherent in the act of production.

A.

It is true that in Hubbell the Supreme Court drew a

distinction between protected testimony as to the existence,

location, and authenticity of documents inherent in the act of

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 14 of 26
15

production and the unprotected contents of the documents

themselves. See Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 37. This distinction,

however, is only relevant in the context of determining whether

an act of production implicates the Fifth Amendment. In that

context, the contents of the documents are irrelevant for

constitutional purposes because their preparation was not

“compelled.” See Fisher, 425 U.S. at 409-10; Doe, 465 U.S. at

610-11. Therefore, to determine whether an act of production

implicates the Fifth Amendment, the court looks only to the

communicative aspects of the act of production itself and to

whether those tacit averments as to the existence and location of

the documents add anything significant “to the sum total of the

Government’s information.” Fisher, 425 U.S. at 411.

The “sharp distinction” upon which the district court relied

becomes less relevant, however, when a court proceeds to “the

conceptually separate and temporally subsequent Kastigar

inquiry.” Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 580. This is because § 6002,

coextensive with the protections of the Fifth Amendment, see

Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 453, provides that a witness compelled by

the district court to testify over an assertion of the Fifth

Amendment privilege is not only protected from having that

testimony used against him, but is also protected from having

“any information directly or indirectly derived from such

testimony” used against him. When the government does not

have reasonably particular knowledge of the existence or

location of a document, and the existence or location of the

document is communicated through immunized testimony, the

contents of the document are derived from that immunized

testimony, and therefore are off-limits to the government.

The government concedes that the contents of subpoenaed

documents can sometimes be off-limits, describing the subpoena

response in Hubbell as “sufficiently testimonial (as to the

documents’ existence and location) to be privileged, and to taint

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 15 of 26
16

the contents of the documents themselves.” Appellee’s Br. at

25. The government attempts to minimize the distinction that

the district court drew between contents and act of production.

It contends that the district court understood that the act of

production could taint the contents of produced documents, but

found that Ponds’ act of production did not taint the contents of

the produced materials because his act of production did not

make the extensive testimonial representations that Hubbell did.

The government reads the district court as understanding that

act-of-production immunity could reach the contents of

documents, but that in this case, immunity did not reach the

documents’ contents.

The district court distinguished Ponds’ case from Hubbell

in finding “the degree of interpretation, locating, cataloging and

assembling of documents so important in Hubbell . . . simply not

demanded by the narrow subpoena at issue here.” Ponds, 290

F. Supp. 2d at 82. If the district court was correct that Ponds’

act of production was insufficiently testimonial to implicate the

Fifth Amendment, then it would be proper to deny protection to

the contents of the produced documents. The district court

opinion does not explicitly connect the discussion of the

testimonial character of Ponds’ act of production to its

conclusion that the contents of the documents were

unprivileged, however, which leads Ponds to contend that the

district court had the errant understanding that § 6002 immunity

only categorically reaches “testimony inherent in the act of

production” and “plainly not the contents of the documents

produced.” Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 81; see, e.g., id. at 84.

Such an understanding would revive the rejected manna-fromheaven rationale whereby the government could use documents

against an immunized party when it could do so without

reference to how the documents were produced. That

understanding would conflate the Fifth Amendment question —

is the act of production sufficiently testimonial to warrant Fifth

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 16 of 26
17

Amendment protection? — with the immunity question — has

the government used compelled testimony or the information

directly or indirectly derived therefrom in prosecuting the

witness? See Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 580. Although the contents

of the documents are irrelevant to determining whether the act

of production was testimonial, the government’s use of the

contents of the documents is critical in determining whether

there was a derivative use of the compelled testimony that

violates § 6002.

B.

Applying the lessons of Fisher and Hubbell to determine

whether Ponds’ act of production is better characterized as

“testimony” or “surrender,” we begin by addressing the

threshold question of whether the government has “establish[ed]

its [pre-subpoena] knowledge of the existence, possession, and

authenticity of the subpoenaed documents with ‘reasonable

particularity’” such that “the communication inherent in the act

of production can be considered a foregone conclusion.”

Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 579. Ponds contends that his act of

production was sufficiently testimonial to trigger Fifth

Amendment protection because he used the contents of his mind

to interpret the subpoena’s directions and to identify the

documents in his possession that he believed were responsive.

He maintains that the government was not focused on any tax

offenses or any documents relevant to such offenses, citing MDAUSA Wilkinson’s statement that she was “surprised” by some

of the documents produced as evidence of the government’s lack

of previous awareness of the existence and location of some of

the documents. The government relies on the district court’s

finding that the subpoena was “narrow and specific, and

reflected that the government already knew of the existence of

the types of documents sought and their possession by

defendant.” Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 82.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 17 of 26
18

As the critical inquiry is whether the government can show

it had such “prior knowledge of either the existence or the

whereabouts,” Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 45, of the produced

documents that their existence and location was a “foregone

conclusion,” Fisher, 425 U.S. at 411, the parties approach this

inquiry by comparing and contrasting Ponds’ subpoena to those

in Fisher and Hubbell. By any measure, this subpoena falls

somewhere in between the two: Unlike Fisher, the prosecutors

here did not ask for “retained copies” of workpapers, tax returns,

and correspondence about which they were sure of both the

existence and location. Compare Fisher, 425 U.S. at 394, with

Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 74. Unlike Hubbell, the set of topics

for which the Maryland prosecutors sought “any and all

documents” “refer[ring] or relat[ing]” to is somewhat defined.

Compare Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 46-49, with Ponds, 290 F. Supp.

2d at 74. For most of the subpoena categories, however, the

government has failed to establish its previous knowledge of the

existence or location of the documents. 

The existence and location of some subpoenaed documents

were a foregone conclusion: For instance, the government must

have known of the existence of the documents in Subpoena

Demand No. 5, “[a]ny and all correspondence between the Law

Offices of Navron Ponds [and courts and prosecutors] in the

matter of U.S. v. Jerome Harris,” because it was a party to that

correspondence. And the government knew of the existence of

documents referring to “payment of legal fees by or on behalf of

Jerome Harris” (Subpoena Demand No. 2) because it had

already seized a copy of Harris’s retainer agreement from his

prison cell. The failure of the government to identify each

produced document specifically is of no moment. To be

consistent with Fisher, in which there is no indication that the

government knew of each document within the set of documents

of which it was aware, the “reasonable particularity” standard

cannot demand that the subpoena name every scrap of paper that

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 18 of 26
19

is produced. Because the government already had sufficient

knowledge about the Harris documents, Ponds was simply

surrendering them, not testifying, by complying with those

demands in the subpoena.

The government’s prior knowledge of the existence or

location of other subpoenaed documents has not been

established. First, the government has not shown any prior

knowledge that documents regarding the “use, ownership,

possession, custody and/or control of a white Mercedes Benz”

(Subpoena Demand No. 1) were in existence or in Ponds’

possession. Before the subpoena, the government knew that the

Mercedes was normally parked at Ponds’ apartment and was

registered to his sister. See Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 83. But

it had no idea that Ponds possessed some of the documents he

produced — a registration card, auto insurance information,

sales contracts, and the title — and has not shown it was even

aware of the existence of the large range of correspondence and

receipts that he produced regarding repairs and improvements to

the Mercedes. In fact, MD-AUSA Wilkinson testified that “at

the time that [she] sought Act of Production Immunity,” she was

seeking to determine “whether or not there were other

documents that proved the longevity of [Ponds’] ownership of

this car.” This statement confirms that the government did not

know “whether or not” documents relating to the car existed or

were in Ponds’ possession. Ponds’ act of producing the carrelated documents testified to their existence and his possession,

which effectively communicated that he had long been the

beneficial owner of the car. The government’s prior knowledge

that Ponds had possession of a Mercedes registered to his sister

might render harmless the government’s improper use of the

subpoenaed documents relating to the car, because the

documents mostly confirmed what the government already

suspected, but the government’s prior knowledge that he

possessed the Mercedes is not enough to establish with

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 19 of 26
20

reasonable particularity its prior knowledge regarding the

documents related to the Mercedes. As in Hubbell, where the

Supreme Court rejected the government’s claim of knowledge

based on the “overbroad” claim that Hubbell was a businessman

and therefore would have business-related documents, 530 U.S.

at 45, the government cannot show knowledge by means of

broad assumptions about car ownership, much less mere

possession. Cf. Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 578. 

Similarly, the government has not shown prior knowledge

of the existence or location of documents relating to Ponds’

sister, Laura Pelzer, (Subpoena Demand No. 4) a subpoena

request that turned up documents regarding shared bank

accounts and sales of shared real property. While in common

parlance it might be a “foregone conclusion” that a person with

a sibling will have documents relating or referring to the sibling

— even if only a Christmas card or a parent’s will — the

reasonable particularity standard demands more. This court

explained in Hubbell that “the government cannot simply

subpoena business records and then claim the requisite

knowledge for purposes of the Fifth Amendment by pointing to

the existence of a business.” Hubbell, 167 F.3d at 578. The

court stated that “the [government]’s assertion that its

knowledge of Hubbell’s status as a consultant and a taxpayer

carried with it a concomitant awareness of the existence and

possession of his consulting and tax records similarly falls

short.” Id. at 579. Likewise, the government’s knowledge of

Ponds’ status as a brother does not carry with it an awareness of

the existence and possession of records about his sister. The

government’s prior knowledge that Ponds had a Mercedes and

a sister cannot suffice to establish its prior knowledge of the

existence and location of the documents relating or referring to

those topics that Ponds, with immunity, produced in response to

the subpoena.

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 20 of 26
21

In addition, the government has not shown that it had any

prior knowledge of the existence or location of “[r]ecords of

employees of the law Office of Navron Ponds in the time frame

of 1996 to the present” (Subpoena Demand No. 6). The district

court’s determination that the existence and location of these

documents was a foregone conclusion was based on pure

inference: “[T]he Court concludes that it was a foregone

conclusion in this day and age in the Washington area that a sole

practitioner would have some staff, even if part-time or

temporary, to assist him in his legal practice. Moreover, it was

also a foregone conclusion that certain administrative

documents, including health care forms, would exist with

respect to such staff, and would be in defendant’s possession.”

Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 85. This reasoning is reminiscent of

“the overbroad argument that a businessman . . . will always

possess general business and tax records,” Hubbell, 530 U.S. at

45, an argument the Supreme Court found could not “cure [the]

deficiency” of the government’s failure to demonstrate its “prior

knowledge of either the existence or the whereabouts” of the

produced documents in Hubbell, id. 

The request for documents relating to any employees —

when the government did not know whether Ponds had

employees, much less whether he had specific documents

relating to them — “was tantamount to answering a series of

interrogatories,” id. at 41, asking Ponds if he had employees,

and if so, what their names were. This is made clear by the fact

that Ponds was asked in the Maryland grand jury whether the

“insurance record” “serve[s] to provide information called for in

the subpoena with respect to information about the employees

of your law office,” an inquiry to which Ponds answered “yes.”

It is further clarified by the fact that the subpoena asks for

records regarding “employees” in the plural, indicating that the

government did not really know about Ponds’ employment

practices. MD-AUSA Wilkinson’s infirm belief that she had at

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 21 of 26
22

one time spoken with a secretary in Ponds’ office — she

testified that “it’s possible I did, possible I didn’t” — does not

demonstrate the requisite knowledge of the existence and

location of documents relating to Ponds’ employees. 

 

The face of the subpoena also displays the government’s

lack of knowledge when it asks for documents that “refer or

relate to any vehicles in the custody or control of Jerome Harris

if access to that vehicle was provided to you by any means”

(Subpoena Demand No. 3). The “if” in that request

demonstrates that the government did not know whether Harris

had given Ponds access to any vehicles besides the Mercedes,

much less whether there existed any documents that would

prove such access. If Ponds had been directly asked when he

appeared before the grand jury whether he had employees or

whether Harris had given him access to any vehicles, the Fifth

Amendment privilege would allow Ponds to refuse to answer.

See Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U.S. 801, 804-05 (1977).

The government cannot make an end-run around the Fifth

Amendment by fishing for a document that will answer a

question for which it could not demand an answer in oral

examination. 

In sum, the government has failed to show with reasonable

particularity that it had prior knowledge of the existence and

location of many of the subpoenaed documents necessary to

render their existence and location a “foregone conclusion.”

The Supreme Court has not defined the precise amount of

cognition on the part of an immunized party necessary to render

a subpoena response “testimonial,” but it is clear here that, as in

Hubbell, the government “needed [Ponds’] assistance both to

identify potential sources of information and to produce those

sources,” Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 41, and “it is undeniable that

providing a catalog of existing documents,” id. at 42, rendered

this subpoena response “testimony” rather than mere

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 22 of 26
23

“surrender.” So much is evident in the government’s admission

that it was “surprised” by some of the documents produced. 

C.

Having determined that portions of Ponds’ act of production

were testimonial, the next question is whether the government

violated its immunity agreement with Ponds by using that

“testimony or other information compelled under the order (or

any information directly or indirectly derived from such

testimony or other information).” 18 U.S.C. § 6002. “When the

government proceeds to prosecute a previously immunized

witness, it has ‘the heavy burden of proving that all of the

evidence it proposes to use [or has used] was derived from

legitimate independent sources.’” North, 910 F.2d at 854

(quoting Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 461-62). As the primary

evidence used to secure Ponds’ indictment was the records

seized during the searches of his home and office (and other

information turned up from leads in those records), the inquiry

under § 6002 must focus on the period before those searches to

determine whether the subpoenaed documents derived from

Ponds’ act of production were used to either focus the

investigation before the searches or to craft the search warrant

affidavit, or if wholly independent evidence supported those

actions. See United States v. Kurzer, 534 F.2d 511, 515 (2d Cir.

1976). 

Ponds contends that the government violated his Fifth

Amendment privilege by using the produced documents at two

points: in establishing its evasion theory of the case and in

crafting the search warrant application. Of course, § 6002 is “a

comprehensive safeguard, barring the use of compelled

testimony as an ‘investigatory lead,’ and also barring the use of

any evidence obtained by focusing investigation on a witness as

a result of his compelled disclosures.” Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 460

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 23 of 26
24

(footnotes omitted). Section 6002's “sweeping proscription,”

id., of any use of compelled testimony without doubt bars the

use of immunized information in an affidavit in support of a

search warrant that turns up evidence used against the witness

in a subsequent prosecution. See United States v. Nanni, 59 F.3d

1425, 1443 (2d Cir. 1995).

The district court noted the “government conce[ssion] that,

to a limited extent, the IRS made use of some documents the

defendant had produced to the grand jury to support the search

warrant affidavits.” Ponds, 290 F. Supp. 2d at 75. Furthermore,

the district court found that “the record is clear (and the

government acknowledges) that Maggie Alexander was

identified and then made certain statements to the grand jury

based on documents that the defendant [Ponds] produced” and

that “[s]ome of those statements were included in the search

warrant affidavit,” id. at 87, but found this unproblematic

because Ponds “cannot point to any testimonial aspect of [his]

act of production — as opposed to the contents of the documents

themselves — that was used by the government to obtain the

search warrants,” id. at 88. As discussed, this finding is legally

erroneous because it fails to recognize that non-testimonial

evidence derived from this testimonial act of production may not

be used under § 6002.

Nevertheless, although the district court’s findings

regarding the use of immunized documents make clear that

some impermissible derivative use occurred, the degree of the

Kastigar violation is less apparent. The government is free to

use a piece of information that appears in an immunized

document if it can accomplish its “affirmative duty” of proving

that the information was “derived from a legitimate source

wholly independent of the compelled testimony.” Kastigar, 406

U.S. at 460. As this court has emphasized that such an “inquiry

must proceed witness-by-witness; if necessary, it will proceed

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 24 of 26
25

line-by-line and item-by-item,” North, 910 F.2d at 872, the

district court is better positioned to make such a determination

in the first instance. 

Determining the precise manner in which Ponds’ rights

were violated is essential because the finding of a Kastigar

violation does not resolve Ponds’ challenge to his convictions.

“Dismissal of the indictment or vacation of the conviction is not

necessary where the use is found to be harmless beyond a

reasonable doubt,” North, 910 F.2d at 854 (citations omitted),

because “the error complained of did not contribute to the

[outcome] obtained,” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24

(1967). Where, as here, the immunized evidence emerges early

in the investigation, the court must determine whether the

government “would have taken the same steps entirely apart

from the motivating effect of the immunized testimony.” Nanni,

59 F.3d at 1433. As to the use of Ponds’ documents and Maggie

Alexander’s testimony in the search warrant affidavits, “[t]he

question thus becomes whether that use was harmless beyond a

reasonable doubt in the sense that the immunized testimony was

so inconsequential that it could not have influenced either the

government’s decision to request search warrants or the issuing

magistrate’s decision to grant them.” Id. at 1443. In this

determination, “[t]he government cannot escape its error simply

by showing the availability of ‘wholly independent’ evidence

from which it might have procured indictment or conviction had

it not used the immunized testimony,” United States v. Pelletier,

898 F.2d 297, 303 (2d Cir. 1990) (emphasis added), but must

demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the tax evasion case

would have been vigorously pursued, and the search warrant

sought and obtained, had the government not relied on the

documents revealed by Ponds’ act of production. Unless the

government’s use of Kastigar evidence, in light of evidence

from independent sources, was “‘so unimportant and

insignificant’ and ha[s] so ‘little, if any, likelihood of having

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 25 of 26
26

3

 If the district court determines upon remand that the

convictions of tax evasion and fraud should stand, then as Ponds

contends and the government agrees, the district court must determine,

in light of its treatment of the sentencing guidelines as mandatory, see

United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), and an unclear record

on the question of prejudice as a result, whether its error prejudiced

Ponds because it would have imposed a sentence materially more

favorable to Ponds if it had known of the post-Booker sentencing

regime, see United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764, 767 (D.C. Cir.

2005).

changed the result of the proceeding’ that [it] ‘may be deemed

harmless,’” United States v. Gallo, 859 F.2d 1078, 1082 (2d Cir.

1988) (quoting Chapman, 386 U.S. at 22) (alterations omitted),

the violation of Ponds’ right not to be a witness against himself

cannot be excused as harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

The government has not shown that it had reasonably

particular knowledge of the existence and location of some of

the documents it subpoenaed from Ponds. It has conceded that,

to some extent, it used those documents to prepare its

prosecution of Ponds. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of

conviction and we remand the case to the district court to

consider the degree of the government’s impermissible use and

to determine whether that use was harmless beyond a reasonable

doubt.3

USCA Case #03-3134 Document #980174 Filed: 07/14/2006 Page 26 of 26