Opinion ID: 757749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Due Process Challenges Premised on Sexual Misconduct

Text: 41 Other courts have considered due process challenges specifically premised on alleged sexual misconduct by government operatives in the course of their investigations. Two such cases are particularly instructive on the thorny issue of how we should evaluate the use of sexual or emotional intimacy in undercover operations. The first is United States v. Simpson, 813 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir.1987), in which the FBI employed a known prostitute and heroin user as an informant in an undercover investigation of a suspected heroin dealer. After befriending the defendant, the informant, acting on her own initiative, became sexually intimate with him. The informant subsequently introduced the defendant to other undercover agents posing as potential heroin purchasers, and he was ultimately arrested after an arranged deal with one of the agents was consummated. See id. at 1464. Although the FBI did not encourage the informant to use sex in carrying out her assignment, at some point the agency became aware of her sexual involvement with the defendant and decided not to terminate her participation in the investigation. See id. at 1467-68. 42 The defendant argued that the informant's use of sex as a means of gaining his trust through intimacy, and the government's continued employment of the informant after learning of her sexual involvement with the defendant, constituted outrageous misconduct and an invasion of his privacy and autonomy rights. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, reasoning that: 43 the deceptive creation and/or exploitation of an intimate relationship does not exceed the boundary of permissible law enforcement tactics.... The betrayed suspect might feel foolish or insulted but a suspect cannot complain of government impropriety based on the use of deception alone. And, Simpson does not claim that he was physically or psychologically coerced into developing a close relationship with [the informant].... The due process clause does not protect Simpson from voluntarily reposing his trust in one who turns out to be unworthy of it. 44 Id. at 1466; see also Miller, 891 F.2d at 1268 (rejecting outrageousness claim when government used informant who previously had had a sexual relationship with defendant). Importantly, however, the Simpson court stated that it need not decide at this time whether the use of sex as a law enforcement tool would 'shock the conscience' under circumstances where the government is clearly responsible, as would be the case if [the informant] had been a law enforcement officer rather than a paid informant. Id. at 1468 n. 4 (emphasis added). 45 Despite this distinction, the Simpson court made a number of general observations about the difficulties in finding the government's use or condonation of sex by undercover operatives sufficiently outrageous so as to rise to the level of a due process violation. The court observed: 46 To win a suspect's confidence, an informant must make overtures of friendship and trust and must enjoy a great deal of freedom in deciding how best to establish a rapport with the suspect. In a particular case the informant might perceive a need to establish a physical as well as emotional bond with the suspect. We see no principled way to identify a fixed point along the continuum from casual physical contact to intense physical bonding beyond which the relationship becomes shocking when entertained by an informant. Rather, any attempt to distinguish between holding hands, hugging, kissing, engaging in sexual foreplay, and having sexual intercourse on a regular basis in order to decide when an informant has gone too far would require us to draw upon our peculiarly personal notions of human sexuality and social mores. The Supreme Court has rightly indicated that the outrageous conduct doctrine ought not to be applied in so subjective a manner.... 47 [W]e refuse to draw fine lines based on the level of emotional intimacy inhering in a particular informant-suspect relationship.... Exploiting an emotionally intimate relationship between lovers seems no more egregious than exploiting an emotionally intimate relationship between family members. Second, courts are not well equipped to assess the degree of intimacy perceived by particular suspects ... such that individual judicial determinations that sexual relationships were sufficiently intimate to bar prosecution would lack the universality of condemnation required by the due process clause. 48 Id. at 1466-67. 49 While Simpson dealt only with the government's use of civilian informants (in contrast to undercover government agents), we believe that many of the same considerations that troubled the Ninth Circuit also arise here. We agree that trying to fit a subjective notion such as intimacy into the framework of the Due Process clause is an immensely difficult task. Yet, our view of this problem may differ from Simpson in at least one significant respect. Although we agree that undercover agents cannot be deprived of the ability to develop strong bonds with their targets in order for investigations to proceed, and that it is exceedingly difficult to identify the point at which physical contact and emotional intimacy between an undercover agent and his or her target suspect becomes outrageous as a matter of constitutional law, we believe that such a point does exist. Therefore we must endeavor to determine whether it has been reached on the facts of this case. 50 The only federal appellate decision that deals specifically with a sexual relationship between a suspect and an undercover government agent is United States v. Cuervelo, 949 F.2d 559 (2d Cir.1991). In that case, the defendant was the subject of a government operation designed to ferret out a drug conspiracy. The undercover DEA agent conducting the investigation testified that he tried to establish a love interest between himself and the defendant, and, according to the defendant, they had sexual relations on at least fifteen occasions. 949 F.2d at 561, 563. In addition, the agent allegedly gave the defendant gifts of money, clothes, and jewelry, and wrote her a number of love letters. Id. at 563. The defendant moved to dismiss the indictment, which the district court denied without holding an evidentiary hearing. The Second Circuit remanded, holding that a hearing was required. Id. at 569. 51 Based on its review of such cases as Simpson, the court stated that in order to make out a successful outrageousness claim in these circumstances, at a minimum, the defendant must show the following: 52 (1) That the government consciously set out to use sex as a weapon in its investigatory arsenal, or acquiesced in such conduct for its own purposes upon learning that such a relationship existed; 53 (2) That the government agent initiated a sexual relationship, or allowed it to continue to exist, to achieve governmental ends; and 54 (3) That the sexual relationship took place during or close to the period covered by the indictment and was entwined with the events charged therein. 55 949 F.2d at 567. It is important to note that Cuervelo only held that an evidentiary hearing is warranted if the defendant raises allegations meeting these criteria. See id. Yet, there is little doubt that Cuervelo envisioned these criteria as the standard to be applied on the merits since the court noted that, at the merits stage, the district court would have to consider the following questions (which essentially address the same issues): 56 (a) To what extent is the undercover agent's conduct attributable to the government (i.e. did the government actively or passively acknowledge or encourage the sexual relationship)? 57 (b) What purpose(s) did the agent's sexual conduct serve, if any? 58 (c) Did the agent act on his own initiative or under the direction (or with the approval) of his agency? 59 (d) Who initiated the relationship? 60 (e) When did the alleged sexual relations end? 61 Cuervelo, 949 F.2d at 568. 62 We believe that Cuervelo 's minimum criteria standard effectively captures the core issues underlying an outrageous government conduct claim premised on sexual misconduct. Accordingly, we will adopt the Cuervelo standard as the law of this circuit, with one modification. Cuervelo appears to require the defendant to introduce evidence demonstrating that the government knew that its undercover agent had engaged or was engaging in a sexual relationship with him or her. We believe that this requirement may be too stringent, and could encourage supervisory agents to turn a blind eye to the conduct of their operatives. Hence, we believe that the defendant need only show that the government consciously set out to use sex as a weapon in its investigatory arsenal, or acquiesced in such conduct for its own purposes once it knew or should have known that such a relationship existed. In addition, we emphasize that the Cuervelo criteria, while useful, should not be applied rigidly; the ultimate determination to be made on the merits is whether the government's conduct was so shocking, outrageous, and clearly intolerable that Due Process is offended. In most cases involving sexual misconduct by government agents, however, our version of the Cuervelo factors should provide an appropriate framework for this analysis.