Page 1 – DEFENDANT RYAN BUNDY’S MOTION FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER

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Ryan Bundy, Pro Se

Inmate: Swis# 795070

Multnomah County Detention Center

11540 NE Inverness Drive

Portland, OR 97220

Telephone: (503) 988-3689

Defendant

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff,

vs.

RYAN BUNDY,

Defendant.

Case No. 3:16-cr-00051-BR-05

DEFENDANT RYAN BUNDY’S 

MOTION FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER 

FOR UNMONITORED MEETINGS, 

CORRESPONDENCE AND PHONE 

CALLS

Judge: Honorable Anna J. Brown

CERTIFICATE OF CONFERRAL: Prior to the filing of this motion standby 

counsel Lisa J. Ludwig, on behalf of pro se Defendant Ryan Bundy, conferred with 

AUSA Geoffrey Barrow. The government takes no position on this motion.

MOTION

Defendant Ryan Bundy, pro se, respectfully moves the court for a protective order 

directing that his meetings, correspondence, and phone calls made for the purpose of his 

legal defense be unlimited, unmonitored and unrecorded by the Government, except to 

the extent it is necessary to maintain facility security.

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I. As a Pro Se Defendant in Custody, Mr. Bundy Requires Certain 

Accommodations to Represent Himself.

“The Sixth Amendment does not provide merely that a defense shall be made for 

the accused; it grants to the accused personally the right to make his defense.” Faretta v. 

California, 422 U.S. 806, 819 (1975). Moreover, the Court stated, “The right to defend is 

given directly to the accused; for it is he who suffers the consequences if the defense 

fails.” Id. As defined by the Court, this right contemplates a defendant's active and 

meaningful participation in the trial:

A defendant's right to self-representation plainly encompasses certain specific 

rights to have his voice heard. The pro se defendant must be allowed to control 

the organization and content of his own defense, to make motions, to argue points 

of law, to participate in voir dire, to question witnesses, and to address the court 

and the jury at appropriate points in the trial.

McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S. at 174.

Additionally, the Ninth Circuit has held that "time to prepare and some access to 

materials and witnesses are fundamental to a meaningful right of representation," and that 

"[a]n incarcerated defendant may not meaningfully exercise his right to represent himself 

without access to law books, witnesses, or other tools to prepare a defense." Milton v. 

Morris, 767 F.2d 1443, 1446 (9th Cir. 1985) (citing Faretta, 422 U.S. at 818)(emphasis 

supplied); see also United States v. Sarno, 73 F.3d 1470, 1491 (9th Cir. 1995)("[T]he 

Sixth Amendment demands that a pro se defendant who is incarcerated be afforded 

reasonable access to 'law books, witnesses, or other tools to prepare a defense.'" (quoting 

Milton, id.)). It is acknowledged, however, that these requirements are not unconditional. 

See Sarno, id. ("The right of access is not unlimited, but must be balanced against the 

legitimate security needs or resource constraints of the prison." (citations omitted)); 

United States v. Robinson, 913 F.2d at 717 ("A pro se defendant's right of 'some access' 

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to resources to aid the preparation of his defense must, however, be balanced against 

security considerations and the limitations of the penal system." (citation omitted)).

II. MCSO Currently Records All Communications and Visits

a. MCSO Denies Unmonitored Visits Without Court Order

Captain Derrick Peterson of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office has 

responded to defense requests for information about visiting and communications, and 

participated in the filing of a joint status report regarding the conditions of Mr. Bundy’s 

confinement at the Multnomah County Detention Center (Attachment #1). His position 

(via June 7, 2016 email) is that he may not allow any person (other than stand-by counsel 

and her staff) to have unrecorded contact with Mr. Bundy. Any exception to this policy 

would have to be made at the direction of the Court or the United States Marshals. 

b. MCSO Prohibits Contact with Ammon Bundy

Although Ryan Bundy and his brother and co-defendant Ammon Bundy are 

housed in the same facility and wish to participate in a Joint Defense Agreement, MCSO 

has declined to permit them to have any contact with each other within that facility, or 

any confidential communication about their joint defense, citing a secret policy that 

prohibits contact between inmates who are close relatives.

1 The United States Marshals 

have no such rules, and if the Bundys were housed at Sheridan or Columbia County Jail, 

they could be in the same housing unit.

 

1 Attachment #2 (articles re: secret policy)

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c. Means of Contact at MCDC

The Multnomah County Detention Center has several means by which an 

inmate can be contacted: 1) In-person visits in a private, unmonitored room. The 

visitor has to be a professional (lawyer, lawyer’s staff, or expert), must be on a list 

approved by MCDC Command Staff, and must be scanned through a metal detector prior 

to entry. Inmates are strip-searched following each visit; 2) In-person visits in a “noncontact room.” These visits take place with a glass divider between the inmate and 

visitor. Communication is via a telephone handset, which records the conversation unless 

the visitor is a professional. Professional visitors are given a key that gives access to an 

unrecorded handset; 3) Attorney line incoming calls. These are calls that are only 

permitted by lawyers and their staff. They are unrecorded and access is accomplished by 

use of an individual ID code issued by jail command staff after screening and approval; 

4) Attorney outgoing calls. An inmate can make a call to an attorney’s office. If that 

number is known to the jail as the number of an attorney, those calls are not supposed to 

be monitored or recorded2; 5) Regular outgoing calls. These are made by the inmate to 

anyone and are monitored and recorded by jail staff and made available upon request to 

any law enforcement agency for their investigation purposes; and, 6) Mail: All mail that 

is not to or from a lawyer’s office is inspected and copies of letters, documents and 

photos are supplied to the Government.

 

2 See section (e) for discussion.

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d. Privileged Calls are Being Captured and Provided to the Government

The third-party vendor, Securus, that supplies phone service to MCDC,

gives law enforcement direct access to all the recorded content of all calls and monitored 

visits a detainee has. Last year, Securus reportedly captured and subsequently leaked “at 

least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys” to the public via the 

internet. The Intercept, “Not So Securus: Massive Hack of 70 Million Prisoner Phone 

Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege” November 11, 2015.3 

Recently in this District in another high-profile case, law enforcement 

collected, reviewed and redisclosed recorded attorney-client calls to co-defendants. See 

United States v. Pedersen, 3:12-cr-00431-HA, Supervisory Opinion, ECMF #475.

e. The United States is Currently Obtaining Recorded Communications of 

PreTrial Detainees to Learn Planned Legal Strategy in This Case

Attached is a “302” report regarding another defendant in this case

(Attachment #3). The Government agents describe obtaining all of the recordings of 

Ryan Payne’s calls from MCDC, including calls to an attorney, which were obtained by 

the agents but not listened to. Agents working at the direction of the United States 

Attorney then reduced the 79 calls to a three page report focused only on the information 

about Payne’s legal strategy that he discusses with his loved ones. 

 

3 Securus has also reportedly amassed a huge database of federally protected consumer 

propriety network information (CPNI, or “metadata” containing the number you call, at 

what time and for how long) and has been storing and perhaps selling this date to law 

enforcement for years. The Intercept, “Not So Securus: Massive Hack of 70 Million 

Prisoner Phone Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege” November 11, 

2015.

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III. The Ability to Discuss the Case with Advisors, Witnesses, Experts and 

Co-Defendants is Fundamental to Trial Preparation

When a pro se defendant is denied communication with the outside world, he is 

denied due process. Milton v. Morris, 767 F.2d 1443, 1447 (9th Cir. Cal. 1985). 

Although here Mr. Bundy has limited access in custody to the written documents 

provided by the Government as discovery, and some legal materials provided by stand-by 

counsel, he has so far been prohibited from having unrecorded written, telephonic or inperson communication with anyone other than stand-by counsel and her staff. 

a. Ryan Bundy is Entitled to Participate Meaningfully in his JDA

The Ninth Circuit has long recognized that the joint defense privilege is "an 

extension of the attorney-client privilege." United States v. Henke, 222 F.3d 633, 637 (9th 

Cir. 2000) (explaining that a JDA had established an implied attorney-client relationship 

between the codefendants and their counsel); see also United States v. Austin, 416 F.3d 

1016, 1021 (9th Cir. 2005) (recognizing joint defense privilege as extension of attorney 

client privilege that "protects not only the confidentiality of communications passing 

from a party to his or her attorney but also 'from one party to the attorney for another 

party where a joint defense effort or strategy has been decided upon and undertaken by 

the parties and their respective counsel'") (quoting United States v. Schwimmer, 892 F.2d 

237, 243 (2d Cir. 1989)). The privilege is also referred to as the "common interest" 

privilege or doctrine, because it has not been limited to criminal defense situations or 

even situations in which litigation has commenced. Whether the jointly interested persons 

are defendants or plaintiffs, and whether the litigation or potential litigation is civil or 

criminal, the rationale for the joint defense rule remains unchanged: persons who share a 

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common interest in litigation should be able to communicate with their respective 

attorneys and with each other to more effectively prosecute or defend their claims. In re 

Grand Jury Subpoenas, 902 F.2d 244, 249 (4th Cir. 1990)(emphasis supplied).

b. MCDC’s Right to Intercept Mr. Bundy’s Communications is Limited

"Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of 

many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our 

penal system." Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285 (1948). See also Cruz v. Beto, 405 

U.S. 319, 321 (1972). In the First Amendment context a corollary of this principle is that 

a prison inmate retains those First Amendment rights that are not inconsistent with his 

status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections 

system. Thus, challenges to prison restrictions that are asserted to inhibit First 

Amendment interests must be analyzed in terms of the legitimate policies and goals of the 

corrections system, to whose custody and care the prisoner has been committed in 

accordance with due process of law. Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (U.S. 1974). 

Prisoners have a First Amendment right to telephone access, subject to reasonable 

security limitations.'" Halvorsen v. Baird, 146 F.3d, 680, 689 (9th Cir.1998) (quoting 

Keenan v. Hall, 83 F.3d 1083, 1092 (9th Cir.1996)); see also Johnson v. California, 207 

F.3d 650, 656 (9th Cir.2000); Strandberg v. City of Helena, 791 F.2d 744, 747 (9th 

Cir.1986). Any burden placed upon a prisoner's constitutional rights requires a federal 

court to take the next step to determine whether it is "'reasonably related' to legitimate 

penological objectives, or whether it represents an 'exaggerated response' to those 

concerns." Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S. Ct. 2254 at 2260-61 (1987). The 

relevant factors set out by the Court in Turner to guide that inquiry are (1) whether there 

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is a valid, rational connection between the prison policy and the legitimate governmental 

interest put forward to justify it; (2) whether there are alternative means of exercising the 

right; (3) what the impact accommodation of the constitutional right will have on guards, 

on other inmates, or on the allocation of prison resources; and (4) whether the regulation 

or policy is an exaggerated response to prison concerns. Id at 2262. Given the critical 

balance that must be preserved between "the 'policy of judicial restraint regarding 

prisoner complaints and . . . the need to protect constitutional rights,'" id at 2259. (quoting 

Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. at 406), the Turner Court concluded, "when a prison 

regulation impinges on inmates' constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is 

reasonably related to legitimate penological interest." 107 S. Ct. at 2261.

Here, the legitimate penological interest served by monitoring and recording 

a pretrial detainee’s calls and visits is facility security: the need to ensure that detainees 

do not use the phones and visits to stage escape attempts or commit crime within the 

institution. 

c. No Legitimate Penological Interest is Served by Making a Pretrial 

Detainee’s Calls Available to the Prosecution

Restrictions on a pretrial detainee’s exercise of basic constitutional rights 

must be justified by a legitimate penological interest. It is settled that a prison inmate 

"retains those [constitutional] rights that are not inconsistent with his status as a prisoner 

or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system." Pell v. 

Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (U.S. 1974). While monitoring by MCDC staff for the 

facility security issues listed above might meet this test, handing over all of the

recordings, or permitting a private contractor to do so, has no relationship to any 

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penological objective except to keep the facilities full by invading the detainee’s rights 

and privacy to obtain an advantage in the litigation and more convictions. 

d. Subjecting a Pretrial Detainee to 24 hour Surveillance by the 

Prosecution Violates Due Process

"In our society liberty is the norm, and detention prior to trial or without 

trial is the carefully limited exception." United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 755. See 

also Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 316(1993) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) ("The 

institutionalization of an adult by the government triggers heightened, substantive due 

process scrutiny"); Foucha v.Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992) ("Freedom from bodily 

restraint has always been at the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause 

from arbitrary governmental action"); id., at 90 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting) ("As 

incarceration of persons is the most common and one of the most feared instruments of 

state oppression and state indifference, we ought to acknowledge at the outset that 

freedom from this restraint is essential to the basic definition of liberty in the Fifth and 

Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution").

A defendant, including a pro se defendant, on release pre-trial has the ability 

to consult with whomever he wants: to meet jointly with co-defendants, to research and 

identify witnesses, to discuss his case with experts, to receive the honest counsel of loved 

ones about how to proceed. A defendant in custody is stripped of this ability to 

communicate frankly, not because the jail screens his calls for indicators of escape plans 

and crime within the jail, but because MCDC (and Securus) make those recorded calls, 

visits and mail available to the prosecution. This puts the pretrial detainee at an 

additional and significant disadvantage unjustified by any security concern. 

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b. As a Pro Se defendant, Ryan Bundy Should be Permitted to 

Communicate Confidentially with the Advisors of his Choosing to 

Develop Legal Strategy

In order to make Mr. Bundy’s right to self-representation manifest, he needs 

to be able to consult with advisors and experts, and interview witnesses and potential 

witnesses, with the frankness that only comes in a confidential setting. It is well-accepted 

in cases analyzing the attorney-client relationship that only when the communications are 

confidential are they assured of the openness that in turn supplies effective 

representation. Ching v. Lewis, 895 F.2d 608 (9th Cir. Ariz. 1990)(A prisoner's right of 

access to the courts includes confidential contact visitation with his counsel).

The same is true here: Mr. Bundy cannot act as his own lawyer if he is 

denied the most basic privacy to discuss his legal options with trusted advisors, trial 

strategy with his co-defendants, and both inculpatory and exculpatory material with 

potential witnesses he may call at trial. He cannot safely conduct himself as a pro se

defendant when he is being denied what an out of custody defendant would have, and 

there is no legitimate justification for the Government to invade and surveil his pretrial 

investigation, research and preparation. 

IV. Remedies Requested

Mr. Bundy understands that the outgoing calls from the jail, including those from 

all inmates to their attorneys are recorded by the third-party vendor, Securus.4 If no 

mechanism exists to make those outgoing calls free from surveillance, he requests that 

the Court order that his outgoing calls not be provided by Securus to any law 

 

4 Attorney calls are not supposed to be monitored, but as discussed above, errors and 

disclosures are common.

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enforcement agency except MCSO for screening for facility security reasons, and that 

MCSO be ordered not to redisclose any recordings to any other law enforcement agency. 

Further, or in the alternative, Mr. Bundy requests the Court permit him to 

designate any individual, including nonlawyer advisors, witnesses and experts, as a 

“professional” for the purpose of receiving a code to make incoming calls to him at 

MCDC, provided they otherwise meet the security requirements.

Further, or in the alternative, Mr. Bundy requests that the Court order that he be 

permitted in-person, unmonitored, unrecorded visits with any advisor, expert or potential 

witness so that he can prepare to represent himself at trial. 

Further, Mr. Bundy requests that the Court prohibit the disclosure of the names or 

dates of Mr. Bundy’s visits, calls or correspondence by MCSO to any other agent of the 

Government.

Finally, Mr. Bundy requests that the Court order that the Government identify and 

disclose to him any and all recordings, reports and records already collected about his 

communications. 

Respectfully submitted this 27th day of June, 2016.

/s/ Ryan Bundy*

Pro Se Defendant

*Filed on behalf of Mr. Bundy by standby counsel Lisa J. Ludwig, OSB #953387

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