Opinion ID: 505933
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kelso's Statements

Text: 48 The district court also suppressed Kelso's deposition taken in the Kelso v. Robinson tort action because the Government failed to produce it until October 2, 1986, one day before the suppression hearing. The court held that this was an egregious violation of Rule 16, even though the trial was still five weeks away and the Government believed that it had furnished the deposition earlier. Mason, 646 F.Supp. at 852. 22 Despite the Government's mistaken belief, the district court found that there was no satisfactory explanation for the Government's tardy disclosure, that Kelso was prejudiced, and that a continuance could not rectify the prejudice. Id. at 854. The district court stated that even though the trial was five weeks away, Kelso's attorney may have made many strategic decisions in the period between the indictment and the suppression hearing, and his strategy may have been different had he known of the deposition. 49 However, contrary to the lower court's assumption, Mason, 646 F.Supp. at 853, Kelso's attorney, George Lucas, knew or should have known about Kelso's deposition as early as 1984. Lucas was present at a 1984 deposition taken of Morris Dees in which Dees told Robert Bynon, Tucker's attorney, that the SPLC had deposed Kelso in conjunction with the tort suit. Therefore, Kelso and his attorney had reason to know about this deposition, and they should have consulted it in preparation for this case. Moreover, no actual prejudice was demonstrated as a result of the Government's failure to make an earlier disclosure. 50 The district court relied on Campagnuolo for the proposition that actual prejudice is not a necessary prerequisite to suppression where evidence is suppressed for prophylactic purposes. Mason, 646 F.Supp. at 854. However, as in Euceda-Hernandez, Campagnuolo is distinguishable. In this case, the Government did not intentionally withhold Kelso's deposition; it believed that the deposition had already been produced. As in Tucker's case, Euceda-Hernandez suggests that suppression is too severe a remedy here, especially since the court merely assumed that there was prejudice. With five weeks to go to trial, the defendant could not have been severely prejudiced by the late production of a deposition which he knew existed. Moreover, a continuance would have alleviated any potential actual prejudice. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion by suppressing the deposition.