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

Heading: Volume & Format of Discovery

Text: The volume of discovery in the present case was prodigious. Indeed, the government turned over millions of pages of discovery, but that discovery appears to have come from relatively few sources. Most of the discovery came from Berkeley itself, when, in March 2005, inspectors executed a search warrant and imaged (i.e., copied) the electronic contents of the company's computers and servers. After the search, the computers and servers remained on Berkeley's premises, except for several laptops, which were taken offsite and returned two days later. All told, the electronic evidence originating at Berkeley filled three tera-drives and numbered 17 million pages. In addition to the electronic evidence, agents seized approximately 506,000 pages of hard-copy documents, all of which the defendants were eventually permitted to copy. On top of the evidence obtained at Berkeley, discovery included 275 discs of material gathered by the grand jury and 13 discs of potential trial exhibits compiled by the government. The defendants make three arguments with respect to the immense volume of discovery in this case. First, they argue that the district court abused its discretion and violated their right to a fair trial by allowing the government to turn over stupendous quantities of evidence in a disorganized and unsearchable format. Next, they argue that the government was improperly permitted to abdicate its Brady obligations by producing gargantuan haystacks of discovery that swallowed any needles of exculpatory information. Appellant's Br. at 52. Finally, the defendants argue that the district court erroneously denied a 90-day continuance, which was requested to enable the defendants to continue sifting through the mountains of discovery furnished by the government. Ultimately, none of these arguments is persuasive. [24]
The defendants' first argument is that the district court erroneously permitted the government to produce titanic amounts of electronic discovery in formats that were simultaneously disorganized and unsearchable. Specifically, the defendants assert that the electronic images of the Berkeley computers and the discs of potential trial exhibits were difficult to search. The defendants further contend that the government's failure to supplement the discovery materials with indices was prejudicial to the preparation of an adequate defense. [25] In making this argument, the defendants lean heavily on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34(b)(2)(E)(i), which requires a party to produce [discovery materials] as they are kept in the usual course of business or [to] organize and label them to correspond to the categories in the request. The defendants acknowledge that there is no corresponding provision in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, which governs criminal discovery, but they argue that due process mandates enforcement of the civil rule in the criminal context. A district court's decision on a discovery matter is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Gray, 521 F.3d 514, 529 (6th Cir.2008) (citing United States v. $174,206.00 in U.S. Currency, 320 F.3d 658, 663 (6th Cir.2003)); see United States v. Maples, 60 F.3d 244, 246 (6th Cir.1995) (It is well settled that a district court has considerable discretion under Rule 16....). As an initial matter, it must be noted that the defendants cite scant authority suggesting that a district court must order the government to produce electronic discovery in a particular fashion. [26] Furthermore, it bears noting that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, which governs discovery in criminal cases, is entirely silent on the issue of the form that discovery must take; it contains no indication that documents must be organized or indexed. Thus, if we are to find that the district court abused its discretion, we must do so despite a pronounced dearth of precedent suggesting that the district court was wrong. There are a number of factors that counsel against such a finding. First, the overwhelming majority of the discovery at issue was taken directly from Berkeley's computers, which means the defendants had ready access to that information. It also means that the defendants had access to the documents as they [were] kept in the usual course of business. Fed.R.Civ.P. 34(b)(2)(E)(i). Thus, any difficulty that the defendants had in accessing the copies is arguably immaterial. [27] Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the defendants were experiencing little difficulty in accessing the contents of the electronic discovery. Though the defendants claim that they were provided with data that had been rendered in unsearchable formats, they were citing discovery material to the district court in their motions, leading the district court to observe that the [d]efendants' motion[s] demonstrate[d] [that] they [were] capably navigating discovery. Additionally, at the Kastigar -like hearing held before the district court, an expert witness who testified for the defense indicated that, with the use of certain software, he could perform very quick and thorough searches of the electronic discovery. Consequently, it does not appear that the discovery materials were nearly as unsearchable as the defense purports. Lastly, it should be observed that the government did provide the defense with something of a guide to the electronic discovery. In response to the defense's discovery request, the government furnished the defendants with a detailed room-by-room inventory of all items seized from the company, including a listing of the various computers that were imaged. Appellee's Br. at 127. That listing surely offered the defendants some aid in identifying and marshaling the documents relevant to the litigation. Accordingly, we decline to hold that the district court abused its discretion in failing to order the government to produce discovery in a different form.
The defendants next argue that the government shrugged off its obligations under Brady by simply handing over millions of pages of evidence and forcing the defense to find any exculpatory information contained therein. In essence, the defendants contend that the government was obliged to sift fastidiously through the evidence the vast majority of which came from Berkeley itselfin an attempt to locate anything favorable to the defense. This argument comes up empty. In United States v. Skilling, 554 F.3d 529 (5th Cir.2009), vacated in part on other grounds, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2896, 177 L.Ed.2d 619 (2010), the Fifth Circuit confronted and rejected a nearly identical argument. There, disgraced Enron CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling advanced the following contentions: Skilling ... asserts that the government's use of an open file failed to satisfy its Brady obligation to disclose material evidence. Skilling contends that the government's open file, which consisted of several hundred million pages of documents, resulted in the effective concealment of a huge quantity of exculpatory evidence. As the government never directed Skilling to a single Brady document contained in the open file, Skilling argues that the government suppressed evidence in violation of Brady. Id. at 576. In dismissing Skilling's argument, the Fifth Circuit noted that, [a]s a general rule, the government is under no duty to direct a defendant to exculpatory evidence within a larger mass of disclosed evidence. Ibid. (citing United States v. Mulderig, 120 F.3d 534, 541 (5th Cir. 1997)). However, the Skilling court added a caveat: We do not hold that the use of a voluminous open file can never violate Brady. For instance, evidence that the government padded an open file with pointless or superfluous information to frustrate a defendant's review of the file might raise serious Brady issues. Creating a voluminous file that is unduly onerous to access might raise similar concerns. And it should go without saying that the government may not hide Brady material of which it is actually aware in a huge open file in the hope that the defendant will never find it. These scenarios would indicate that the government was acting in bad faith in performing its obligations under Brady. Id. at 577. Here, the government did not engage in any conduct indicating that it performed its Brady obligations in bad faith. First, there is no proof that the government larded its production with entirely irrelevant documents. [28] Furthermore, it cannot be said that the government made access to the documents unduly onerous. While access to the documents may have been somewhat hampered due to the format in which they were transferred, the district court noted that the defendants' motion practice demonstrate[d] they [were] capably navigating the discovery, which primarily all came from [the] [d]efendants in the first place. [29] Finally, there is no indication that the government deliberately concealed any exculpatory evidence in the information it turned over to the defense. [30] Consequently, the government has not abdicated its duties under Brady.
On December 28, 2007, the defendants requested a 90-day continuance, which would have pushed the commencement of the trial from January 8, 2008 to April 8, 2008. In making the request, the defendants contended that they had been afforded insufficient opportunity to review the evidence, stating: [i]t is as if the government has pointed the defendants to the Earth's oceans, saying `there is your discovery.' The district court declined to grant the request, noting that [c]ounsel for [the] [d]efendants outnumber counsel for the government, and have all been working on this case for a substantial amount of time. [31] The defendants now argue that the district court's denial of their request for a continuance was error. The district court's denial of a motion for a continuance is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Crossley, 224 F.3d 847, 854 (6th Cir.2000). Denial amounts to a constitutional violation only if there is an unreasoning and arbitrary `insistence upon expeditiousness in the face of a justifiable request for delay.' To demonstrate reversible error, the defendant must show that the denial resulted in actual prejudice to his defense. United States v. Gallo, 763 F.2d 1504, 1523 (6th Cir.1985) (quoting United States v. Mitchell, 744 F.2d 701, 704 (9th Cir.1984)). The defendant demonstrates `actual prejudice' by showing that a continuance would have made relevant witnesses available or added something to the defense. United States v. King, 127 F.3d 483, 487 (6th Cir.1997); see also United States v. Faulkner, 538 F.2d 724, 729 (6th Cir.1976) (No absolute rule can be articulated as to the minimum amount of time required for an adequate preparation for trial of a criminal case.). The defendants argue that they were prejudiced in two ways. First, they argue that their counsel could not satisfy their constitutional obligation to review all the evidence in the government's possession, custody, or control. [32] Appellant's Br. at 60. In making this argument, they allege that the entirety of the government's 360,000 pages of trial exhibits ... were largely disclosed on November 29, 2007, only six weeks before trial. Id. at 59. Second, the defendants argue that [t]he defense simply did not have sufficient time to locate and then utilize material and exculpatory evidence that was hidden within the millions of pages of discovery. Id. at 60. These arguments lead nowhere. With respect to the first, it must be noted that more than a year elapsed between the time the indictment was handed down and the time the trial began, affording the defendants ample opportunity to construct a defense. [33] Additionally, the discovery time line does not indicate that the defendants were shortchanged with respect to preparation time. The bulk of the documents in question were in the company's possession as early as April 2005. [34] Furthermore, the entirety of the discovery material in the case was in the defendants' hands by June 2007, more than six months in advance of the trial. While the government did not provide the defense with thirteen discs of potential trial exhibits until November 29, 2007approximately six weeks before trial was to beginthose exhibits were ostensibly culled from the discovery material that the government had already provided. [35] It is true that this case involved millions of pages of documents, but there is no dispute that the defendants were given months to comb through the bulk of them. As a result, it cannot be said that the district court's unwillingness to postpone the trial was the product of an undue insistence on haste. The defendants' second argumentthat they were not given enough time to mine exculpatory evidence from the mountains of discovery dumped at their feetsimilarly fails. As an initial matter, it should be noted that this argument assumes that exculpatory evidence exists. In the absence of such evidence, the lack of time to look for it would be harmless. In other words, it would not be prejudicial if the defendants were denied the chance to excavate in a mine that contained no ore. On that score, the most the defendants can say is that they fervently believe[] ... that with sufficient time they would unearth the necessary volume of emails to counter the government's accusations. Appellant's Brief at 60. Consequently, the defendants have failed to demonstrate that the denial of a continuance worked any prejudice with respect to their ability to glean exculpatory evidence. [36]