Opinion ID: 175207
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Cooper Order

Text: The three-judge panel unanimously held that the government's appeal from the Cooper Order was untimely. Comprehensive Drug Testing, 513 F.3d at 1096-1101, 1128. We agree with the panel and adopt its analysis of the issue, seeing no reason to burden the pages of the Federal Reporter by redoing the work the panel already performed so well. On that basis, we dismiss the government's appeal in No. 05-55354. This does not end our discussion of the Cooper Order, however, because it has substantial consequences for the remaining two cases before us. As Judge Thomas pointed out in his panel dissent, once the Cooper Order became final, the government became bound by the factual determinations and issues resolved against it in that order. Comprehensive Drug Testing, 513 F.3d at 1130. Specifically, Judge Cooper found that the government failed to comply with the conditions of the warrant designed to segregate information as to which the government had probable cause from that which was swept up only because the government didn't have the time or facilities to segregate it at the time and place of the seizure. Cooper Order at 4. Relatedly, Judge Cooper determined that the government failed to comply with the procedures outlined in our venerable precedent, United States v. Tamura, 694 F.2d 591 (9th Cir.1982), which are designed to serve much the same purpose as the procedures outlined in the warrant. Finally, Judge Cooper concluded that the government's actions displayed a callous disregard for the rights of third parties, viz., those players as to whom the government did not already have probable cause and who could suffer dire personal and professional consequences from a disclosure of their test results. The affidavit supporting the first search warrant, the one that sought the drug testing records of the ten suspected baseball players, contains an extensive introduction that precedes any information specific to this case. The introduction seeks to justify a broad seizure of computer records from CDT by explaining the generic hazards of retrieving data that are stored electronically. In essence, the government explains, computer files can be disguised in any number of ingenious ways, the simplest of which is to give files a misleading name (pesto.recipe in lieu of blackmail.photos) or a false extension (.doc in lieu of .jpg or .gz). In addition, the data might be erased or hidden; there might be booby traps that destroy or alter data if certain procedures are not scrupulously followed, Warrant Affidavit at 3; certain files and programs might not be accessible at all without the proper software, which may not be available on the computer that is being searched; there may simply be too much information to be examined at the site; or data might be encrypted or compressed, requiring passwords, keycards or other external devices to retrieve. Id. at 4. The government also represented that [s]earching computer systems requires the use of precise, scientific procedures which are designed to maintain the integrity of the evidence. By reciting these hazards, the government made a strong case for off-site examination and segregation of the evidence seized. The government sought the authority to seize considerably more data than that for which it had probable cause, including various computers or computer hard drives and related storage media, and to have the information examined and segregated in a controlled environment, such as a law enforcement laboratory. While the government did not point to any specific dangers associated with CDT, which is after all a legitimate business not suspected of any wrongdoing, it nevertheless made a strong generic case that the data in question could not be thoroughly examined or segregated on the spot. Not surprisingly, the magistrate judge was persuaded by this showing and granted broad authority for seizure of data, including the right to remove pretty much any computer equipment found at CDT's Long Beach facility, along with any data storage devices, manuals, logs or related materials. The warrant also authorized government agents to examine all the data contained in the computer equipment and storage devices, and to attempt to recover or restore hidden or erased data. The magistrate judge, however, wisely made such broad seizure subject to certain procedural safeguards, roughly based on our Tamura opinion. Thus, the government was first required to examine the computer equipment and storage devices at CDT to determine whether information pertaining to the ten identified players c[ould] be searched on-site in a reasonable amount of time and without jeopardizing the ability to preserve the data. The warrant also contained significant restrictions on how the seized data were to be handled. These procedures were designed to ensure that data beyond the scope of the warrant would not fall into the hands of the investigating agents. Thus, the initial review and segregation of the data was not to be conducted by the investigating case agents but by law enforcement personnel trained in searching and seizing computer data (`computer personnel'), whose job it would be to determine whether the data could be segregated on-site. These computer personnelnot the case agentswere specifically authorized to examine all the data on location to determine how much had to be seized to ensure the integrity of the search. Moreover, if the computer personnel determined that the data did not fall within any of the items to be seized pursuant to this warrant or is not otherwise legally seized, the government was to return those items within a reasonable period of time not to exceed 60 days from the date of the seizure unless further authorization [was] obtained from the Court. Subject to these representations and assurances, Magistrate Judge Johnson authorized the seizure. A word about Tamura is in order, and this seems as good a place as any for it. Tamura, decided in 1982, just preceded the dawn of the information age, and all of the records there were on paper. The government was authorized to seize evidence of certain payments received by Tamura from among the records of Marubeni, his employer. To identify the materials pertaining to the payments involved a three step procedure: Examining computer printouts to identify a transaction; locating the voucher that pertained to that payment; and finding the check that corresponded to the voucher. Tamura, 694 F.2d at 594-95. The government agents soon realized that this process would take a long time unless they got help from the Marubeni employees who were present. The employees, however, steadfastly refused, so the agents seized several boxes and dozens of file drawers to be sorted out in their offices at their leisure. We disapproved the wholesale seizure of the documents and particularly the government's failure to return the materials that were not the object of the search once they had been segregated. Id. at 596-97. However, we saw no reason to suppress the properly seized materials just because the government had taken more than authorized by the warrant. For the future, though, we suggested that [i]n the comparatively rare instances where documents are so intermingled that they cannot feasibly be sorted on site, ... the Government[should] seal[ ] and hold[ ] the documents pending approval by a magistrate of a further search, in accordance with the procedures set forth in the American Law Institute's Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure. Id. at 595-96. If the need for transporting the documents is known to the officers prior to the search, we continued, they may apply for specific authorization for large-scale removal of material, which should be granted by the magistrate issuing the warrant only where on-site sorting is infeasible and no other practical alternative exists. Id. at 596. No doubt in response to this suggestion in Tamura, the government here did seek advance authorization for sorting and segregating the seized materials off-site. But, as Judge Cooper found, [o]nce the items were seized, the requirement of the Warrant that any seized items not covered by the warrant be first screened and segregated by computer personnel was completely ignored. Brushing aside an offer by on-site CDT personnel to provide all information pertaining to the ten identified baseball players, the government copied from CDT's computer what the parties have called the Tracey Directory which contained, in Judge Cooper's words, information and test results involving hundreds of other baseball players and athletes engaged in other professional sports. Counsel for CDT, contacted by phone, pleaded in vain that all material not pertaining to the specific items listed in the warrant be reviewed and redacted by a Magistrate or Special Master before it was seen by the Government. Instead, the case agent himself reviewed the seized computer data and used what he learned to obtain the subsequent search warrants issued in Northern California, Southern California, and Nevada. Judge Cooper also found that, in conducting the seizure in the manner it did, [t]he Government demonstrated a callous disregard for the rights of those persons whose records were seized and searched outside the warrant. As previously noted, the government failed to timely appeal the Cooper Order and is therefore bound by its factual determinations and legal rulings. The government also failed to appeal another ruling, by Judge Illston, that ordered return of the Tracey directory and all copies thereof. We will call this the Illston Order. It held unlawful the government's failure to segregate data covered by the warrant from data not covered by it simply because both types were intermingled in the Tracey directory. In reaching this conclusion, Judge Illston necessarily rejected the argument about the scope of the warrant the government made before Judge Mahan. The Illston Order therefore has preclusive effect on the core legal questions resolved in the Mahan Order, viz., the government's failure to segregate intermingled data, as required by Tamura. Issue preclusion attaches when, as here, the first and second action involve application of the same principles of law to an historic fact setting that was complete by the time of the first adjudication. Steen v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 106 F.3d 904, 913 n. 5 (9th Cir.1997) (quoting 18 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 4425 (West Supp.1996)). The determinations in the Cooper and Illston Orders are significant because orders the government does appeal contain similar findings as to the government's conduct. The government cannot contest those rulings if it is bound by the identical rulings in the Cooper and Illston Orders.