Opinion ID: 303342
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Contentions relating to Discovery and Preparation

Text: 11 Following the incidents at Lewisburg Penitentiary on February 1, 1970 the appellants were held apart from the general prison population in administrative segregation. They contend that because they were separated from the general prison population they were unable accurately to determine which of the other inmates might be witnesses favorable to the defense. This, they say, amounted to a deprivation so serious as to violate the Sixth Amendment guarantees of assistance of counsel and compulsory process for the production of witnesses. 12 The contention that appellants were not able adequately to prepare a defense because of their administrative segregation is simply not borne out by the record. From the time of their appointment on September 18, 1970, when the appellants were arraigned, defense counsel were afforded the opportunity on reasonable notice to visit the penitentiary at any time to talk with their clients and to interview potential witnesses. The district court, for reasons relating to potential security risks at the penitentiary, denied appellants' motions to be released into the general prison population. Defense counsel were given a list of all inmates at Lewisburg on February 1, 1970 and a separate list of those who had been transferred elsewhere since that date. The Government arranged that defense counsel might have access to any inmate witness they might want to interview. The court issued writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum for forty-one inmate witnesses and subpoenas for four non-inmate witnesses. The court arranged that the defendants be taken to a place in the penitentiary where they could observe all other inmates at the breakfast and dinner meals and point out any whom they wanted interviewed. The court also caused an announcement to be made over the institution's public address system advising all inmates that anyone who desired to convey information of value to the defendants should send a letter directly to the court, and advising further that these letters would not be opened by either the court or the Government but would be turned over unopened to defense counsel. The court arranged that appellants could confer together in private each evening during the trial. The record is clear that the court took every reasonable step consistent with prison security and witness safety to expedite the efforts of defense counsel and of the appellants to prepare and present whatever defense might have been available. In its opinion on the motions for a new trial the court deals with specific motions for inspection of grand jury minutes, for a list of the Government's lay and expert witnesses, and for a bill of particulars. The reasons set forth, 328 F.Supp. at 1037 et seq., fully justify the court's rulings.