Opinion ID: 181032
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Kastigar-Like Hearing

Text: During the government's investigation of Berkeley, case agents came into possession of myriad documents that were ostensibly subject to the attorney-client privilege. Many of the documents were obtained during a March 16, 2005 search of Berkeley's headquarters, in which agents copied the contents of over 90 computers. Other documents were procured earlier through the subpoena and court order issued to NuVox, which granted investigators access to the contents of Warshak's email accounts. In all, case agents had access to approximately 60,000 email communications from or to attorneys representing Berkeley and Warshak, communications facially and presumptively protected by the attorney-client privilege. Appellant's Br. at 41. On July 5, 2007, Warshak filed a motion to bar the government from using the evidence obtained in violation of the defendants' attorney-client and work product privileges and to dismiss the indictment since privileged material was used to secure it. United States v. Warshak, No. 1:06-CR-00111, 2007 WL 3306603, at  (S.D.Ohio Nov. 5, 2007). In the motion, the defendants requested that the district court hold a hearing in the framework of Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972), at which the government would bear the burden of establishing that its case was untainted by attorney-client and work product privileged materials. Warshak, 2007 WL 3306603, at . To an extent, the district court granted the motion, setting a Kastigar -like hearing with the narrow purpose of eliciting the sworn testimony of government agents as to their handling of evidence. Ibid. In ordering the hearing, the district court found that [the] [d]efendants had raised enough of a question about the amount of time U.S. Postal Inspector Alejandro Almaguer (`Almaguer') possessed privileged data, as well as the government's methodology in screening data for privileged information, to merit a response. Ibid. The hearing was held on September 27 and 28, 2007. During the hearing, the government proffered evidence and the testimony of Almaguer, the [d]efendants were afforded [an] opportunity to cross-examine Almaguer and examine other agents on direct, and the parties argued their respective positions concerning the propriety of the government action in this case. Ibid. In addition, the defendants called Peter Horstmann, an expert witness who used software to analyze the electronic documents the government produced to [the] [d]efendants. Ibid. After the hearing, the district court held that the government had satisfied its burden, stating as follows: The [c]ourt's original concerns that triggered the grant of the Kastigar -like evidentiary hearing were rooted in the amount of time that Almaguer allegedly had access to privileged materials, and in the fact the government had proffered no sworn statements backing its contention that it did not use privileged materials to obtain witness proffers. The government has completely allayed the [c]ourt's concerns. The United States has met its burden to demonstrate its agents have acted properly and that its case is untainted by privileged information. Id. at .
Warshak argues that the Kastigar -like hearing was inadequate. More precisely, he argues that the district court failed to hold[] the government to the burden prescribed by Kastigar and subsequent cases applying it. Appellant's Br. at 48. He complains that the district court simply accepted the government's blanket denials that it used privileged materials in preparing its case against defendants, and shifted the burden to [him] to show that privileged materials contributed to the return of the indictment. Ibid. (internal citations omitted). In short, he argues that the district court improperly loosened the stringent demands of Kastigar. In Kastigar, the Supreme Court held that when a witness is compelled to give incriminating testimony under a grant of statutory immunity and is thereafter prosecuted for any matter related to the compelled testimony, the government must shoulder the heavy burden of proving that all of the evidence it proposes to use was derived from legitimate independent sources. 406 U.S. at 461-62, 92 S.Ct. 1653; see also United States v. Turner, 936 F.2d 221, 224 (6th Cir.1991). This burden of proof ... is not limited to a negation of taint; rather, it imposes on the prosecution the affirmative duty to prove that the evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony. Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 460, 92 S.Ct. 1653. While Kastigar is clearly concerned with the use of testimony obtained despite an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, this court has suggested that Kastigar concerns may arise in the context of other privileges, such as the privilege accorded to attorney-client communications. Specifically, this court has hinted, in dicta, that the leaking of privileged materials to investigators would raise the spectre of Kastigar -like evidentiary hearings. In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, 454 F.3d 511, 517 (6th Cir. 2006). However, no other appellate court appears to have joined us in suggesting that Kastigar is implicated whenever investigators come into possession of materials subject to the attorney-client privilege. One circuit, the Fourth, has engaged in a fairly lengthy analysis of Kastigar 's applicability in the arena of non-constitutional privileges. In United States v. Squillacote, 221 F.3d 542 (4th Cir.2000), the Fourth Circuit was faced with a scenario in which government investigators had legally conducted electronic surveillance on several defendants pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [23] During the surveillance, the agents heard and recorded a number of conversations between one of the defendants and her psychotherapists. Subsequently, the defendants moved to suppress any evidence derived from the privileged communications, arguing that they were entitled to a hearing to vindicate the principles set forth by the Supreme Court in [ Kastigar ]. Id. at 558. Ultimately, the court determined that Kastigar was simply ... not applicable. Ibid. In so holding, the Squillacote court began by conceding that the conversations at issue, which the government had obtained during surveillance, were privileged. According to the court, [t]he question, then, [was] whether the mere existence of this privileged information br[ought] to bear the full weight of Kastigar. Id. at 559. The court held that it did not, finding that a Kastigar analysis is not triggered by the existence of evidence protected by a privilege, but instead by the government's effort to compel a witness to testify over the witness's claim of privilege. Ibid. (emphasis added). However, the court also opined that Kastigar -like protections may be required in cases involving testimony compelled over the assertion of a non-constitutional privilege. Ibid. Nonetheless, in concluding its analysis, the court reiterated that because the government's right to compel testimony in the face of a claim of privilege is the issue at the heart of Kastigar, its protections do not apply in cases where there is privileged evidence, but no compelled testimony. Id. at 560. We agree, and hold that, absent compelled testimony, the full protections of Kastigar are inapplicable. As further justification for its holding in Squillacote, the Fourth Circuit observed that suppression of any evidence derived from the privileged conversations would be [im]proper in this case, given that the privilege is a testimonial or evidentiary one, and not constitutionally-based. Ibid. In making this assertion, the court observed that, as of the year 2000, no court had applied the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine to derivative evidence obtained as a result of improper access to materials covered by a non-constitutional privilege. Ibid. (quoting United States v. Marashi, 913 F.2d 724, 731 n. 11 (9th Cir.1990)); see also Nickel v. Hannigan, 97 F.3d 403, 409 (10th Cir.1996) ([W]e decline to apply the `fruit of the poisonous tree' doctrine to the possible breach of attorney-client privilege in this case.). We have found no subsequent authority indicating that such derivative evidence is subject to suppression, and we agree that it is unwise to extend the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine beyond the context of constitutional violations. See Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 51, 100 S.Ct. 906, 63 L.Ed.2d 186 (1980) (indicating that testimonial privileges must be balanced against the need for probative evidence in the administration of criminal justice). In the present case, the privileged materials were not obtained from Warshak as a result of compelled testimony. Instead, they were garnered pursuant to a subpoena, a court order, and a search warrant, much like the psychotherapist-patient conversations at issue in Squillacote. Thus, because the documents were not the product of compelled testimony, a full Kastigar hearing was not required. Moreover, there is no indication that the government made any direct use of the privileged communications, either at trial or before the grand jury. Consequently, given the fact that evidence derived from a violation of the attorney-client privilege is not fruit of the poisonous tree, Warshak's argument withers.