Opinion ID: 167150
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bureau of Prisons Attorney on Prosecution Team

Text: 16 Jenifer Grundy served as a supervisory attorney for the BOP at USP-Florence from November 1992 to April 2002. In that position, she was responsible for providing legal services to the facility as well as to correctional officers who were accused by inmates of constitutional violations in Bivens actions. See 28 C.F.R. § 50.15 (providing legal representation to federal employees in actions arising out of performance of their official duties). When an officer would make a request for representation, Ms. Grundy would take the officer's statement and then submit it to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ would determine whether representation was warranted. 17 Prior to trial, several of the defendants in this case had Bivens actions filed against them. Relevant to this case, Mr. LaVallee, Mr. Schultz, and David Pruyne were each named in several actions. According to the Appellants, some of the defendants contacted Ms. Grundy to obtain DOJ representation in the actions against them. 18 Later, in connection with the instant case, Ms. Grundy contacted Mr. Pruyne and another of the acquitted defendants, Brent Gall, and requested that they speak with DOJ attorney Mark Blumberg — one of the Government's prosecutors in this case — and an FBI agent. She did not represent either Mr. Pruyne or Mr. Gall at their interviews. During the interviews, Mr. Pruyne and Mr. Gall were allegedly advised that they were the targets of an investigation involving the abuse of inmates. 3 19 On April 21, 2003, ten days into trial, it became apparent to the defendants, including Messrs. LaVallee, Schultz, and Verbickas, that Ms. Grundy was acting with the Government as part of the prosecution against them. They filed a joint motion to disqualify her, 4 alleging violations of Rules 1.9, 1.11 and 1.6(a) of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct. 5 Counsel for the Government responded that Ms. Grundy's only role in the case was to assist and manage witnesses and just general management of the trial. The Government further explained that she had not been hired by the U.S. Attorney's Office, nor was she acting as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney. The defendants presented evidence, however, that Ms. Grundy was acting as a Special AUSA and was participating in witness interviews. Before ruling on the motion for disqualification, the District Court ordered the Government to submit a written response and then denied the motion to disqualify as utterly without merit. 20 The Appellants claim that Ms. Grundy's participation on the prosecution team violated their constitutional right to a fair trial. Indeed, [a] fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S.Ct. 623, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955). The right to due process and a fair trial include the essential element that there is no unfair advantage to the prosecution by reason of a prior professional relationship between a member of its staff and a criminal defendant concerning the same or closely related matter. State v. Boyd, 560 S.W.2d 296, 298-99 (Mo.Ct.App.1977) (quotation omitted). [D]ue process is violated when an attorney represents a client and then participates in the prosecution of that client with respect to the same matter. United States v. Schell, 775 F.2d 559, 566 (4th Cir.1985). 21 In order to determine whether disqualification of counsel is warranted because of prior representation, we ordinarily undertake a three-part inquiry in which we ask whether (1) an actual attorney-client relationship existed between the moving party and the opposing counsel; (2) the present litigation involves a matter that is substantially related to the subject of the movant's prior representation; and (3) the interests of the opposing counsel's present client are materially adverse to the movant. United States v. Stiger, 413 F.3d 1185, 1196 (10th Cir.2005) (quotations and citation omitted). If the moving party makes a non-frivolous allegation that he has had an attorney-client relationship in a substantially related matter, a district court must investigate the allegation further through an evidentiary hearing before denying a motion to disqualify. Id. Failure to do so constitutes an abuse of discretion. Id. 22 Here, the District Court concluded that the motion to disqualify Ms. Grundy for violations of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct was frivolous. Indeed, it explicitly stated that the motion was utterly without merit. On appeal, Mssrs. LaVallee and Schultz proffer no argument to suggest that the District Court erred in concluding that Ms. Grundy violated the rules with respect to any former relationship she may have had with them. The only reference to a relationship between the Appellants and Ms. Grundy is the following: 23 [S]o-called Bivens violations [were filed] against the Defendants and other correctional officers. LaVallee, Schultz and Bond . . . were named as Defendants in Turner. Pruyne was named as a defendant in Bryant, Collins, and Verdecia. Pruyne and other Defendants sought legal representation from the . . . DOJ . . . . Grundy represented Pruyne and these Defendants regarding their requests for DOJ representation. She entered into an attorney-client relationship with Defendants and gathered relevant information regarding their requests to be afforded DOJ legal representation in these civil actions. 24 Based on this conclusory argument, we cannot conclude that District Court erred in finding Mr. LaVallee's and Mr. Schultz's argument frivolous. In fact, neither Appellant ever averred that he actually spoke with Ms. Grundy. At the District Court level, the factual basis for Mr. Schultz's claim—which the District Court rejected— amounted to an assertion that [u]pon information and belief statements were given to Ms. Grundy and or a representative of the U.S. Government. We therefore find no abuse of discretion in the District Court's conclusion on this point. 25 Nonetheless, the Appellants argue that the court erred because it failed to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine the extent of Ms. Grundy's attorney-client relationship with Mr. Pruyne and Mr. Gall. Although the record shows that the court had already determined that no attorney-client relationship existed with respect to Mr. Gall, the same cannot be said with respect to Mr. Pruyne. Even so, we need not decide whether the District Court erred in failing to hold an evidentiary hearing. Both Mr. Gall and Mr. Pruyne were acquitted of the charges against them and therefore are not parties to this appeal. 26 The remaining issue, then, is whether the three Appellants were denied a fair trial because Ms. Grundy purportedly obtained privileged information through her alleged prior representation of the Appellants' codefendants Messrs. Gall and Pruyne such that the prosecution had an unfair advantage in obtaining the Appellants' convictions. The Fourth Circuit confronted similar circumstances in United States v. Schell, 775 F.2d 559. 27 Schell involved the indictment of thirty-nine individuals for numerous crimes, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. During the investigation of the crimes, three individuals under investigation sought representation from an attorney, David Jividen. Id. at 562-63. Mr. Jividen represented them when they appeared before the third grand jury in the matter. Id. at 562. Several months later, Mr. Jividen became employed as an Assistant United States Attorney in the district in which the appellants were later indicted. Id. at 562. In his role as a U.S. Attorney, he appeared before the fourth grand jury leading up to the indictments. Id. at 563. After the grand jury returned its indictment, Mr. Jividen no longer participated in the prosecution of his former clients nor participated in any proceeding in which his former clients were witnesses or potential witnesses. Id. at 564. All three of his clients, along with thirty-five coconspirators, were convicted. Id. 28 On appeal, two of Mr. Jividen's former clients and two of their coconspirators appealed their convictions, arguing that Mr. Jividen's appearance before the fourth grand jury violated their due process rights and was per se prejudicial. Id. at 564-65. The Fourth Circuit stated: 29 The relationship between an attorney and his client is a sacred one. In that relationship, the client must be secure in the knowledge that any information he reveals to counsel will remain confidential. The confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship is severely compromised, if not destroyed, when, after representing a client, a lawyer joins in the criminal prosecution of that client with respect to the identical matter about which the attorney originally counseled the client. Such switching of sides is fundamentally unfair and inherently prejudicial. Without question, the client's right to a fair trial, secured by the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments, is compromised under these circumstances. 30 Id. at 565 (emphasis omitted). It therefore reversed the convictions of Mr. Jividen's former clients. Id. at 566. In so concluding, however, the court refused to find constitutional error with respect to the appellants who had established no attorney-client relationship with Mr. Jividen and who had not demonstrated that Mr. Jividen's former clients had imparted to him confidential information regarding them. Id. at 566. 31 Similarly, in McFarlan v. District Court, the Supreme Court of Colorado held that a prosecutor is not automatically disqualified from prosecuting an accused because of a prior attorney-client relationship with a codefendant of the accused. 718 P.2d 247, 250 (Colo.1986) (listing cases). It identified two factors to consider in determining whether to disqualify a prosecutor in such a case: (1) whether the accused had an attorney-client relationship with the prosecutor; and (2) whether there is any evidence that the prosecutor actually received confidential information from or about the accused. Id. 32 Here, the Appellants make only conclusory allegations that they had an attorney-client relationship with Ms. Grundy. There is no evidence that Mr. Pruyne or any defendant imparted confidential information to Ms. Grundy regarding the Appellants. Mr. Pruyne applied for and obtained DOJ representation for the three Bivens actions filed against him prior to the prosecution of the instant case. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Pruyne communicated confidential information to Ms. Grundy on any topic other than the subject of those Bivens actions. The three inmates who filed those suits were not victims of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment against the Appellants. In other words, the Appellants have failed to establish that they were in any way prejudiced by Ms. Grundy's participation in their prosecution. We therefore hold that the Appellants suffered no constitutional defect in their trials. 6