Opinion ID: 176177
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Compel Handwriting Sample

Text: We review a District Court’s denial of a discovery motion for abuse of discretion. Lloyd v. Hovensa, LLC., 369 F.3d 263 (3d Cir. 2004). 7 Peterkin argues that the District Court abused its discretion in denying his motion to compel handwriting samples of Municipal Court Judge Edward Herman, who issued the search warrants for the vehicles. Peterkin argues that he was never able to verify the authenticity of the warrants because he was never provided with the originals and the warrants contained no time stamp to indicate when they were signed or facsimilie tags verifying that the warrants were sent to Judge Herman via facsimile, signed, and returned via facsimile. This argument underwhelms. After initially denying Peterkin’s motion to compel, the District Court ordered service of a subpoena to compel the production of 20 random orders signed by Judge Herman. In response, in lieu of filing a motion to quash the subpoena, Judge Herman wrote a letter to Peterkin’s attorney indicating that he (Herman) recalled signing the warrants and verifying that the signatures on the warrants were his. He noted that the absence of facsimile tags was because he executed the search warrants in person. 1 In light of this evidence, we hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Peterkin’s motion to compel.