Opinion ID: 727068
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Sixth Amendment Violation in the Search of West's Jail Cell

Text: 48 West argues that the FBI search of her cell violated her Sixth Amendment right to counsel because it invaded documents subject to the attorney-client privilege. There are two major problems with this argument: (1) the FBI official in charge testified that no attorney-client materials had been touched; and (2) even if there had been an intrusion into privileged materials, West was unable to show any resulting prejudice. 49 Unfortunately, it does not appear that the district court made any factual findings regarding West's Sixth Amendment claim. It just denied the motion. Nevertheless, the defense failed to present any evidence to counter FBI Agent Reinecke's unequivocal testimony that all attorney-client documents were avoided. On appeal, too, West's Sixth Amendment arguments are predicated upon mere supposition as to the types of documents the FBI agents might have seen. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the district court was certainly entitled to credit the government's assertion that it did not view any privileged materials during the search. 50 Furthermore, even if we assume that the searching officers did view confidential information, as alleged by West, we are still unable to find any reversible error. West cannot point to any privileged information derived from the search that was used at trial, with the possible exception of the information regarding her down payment on the Honda Civic (later revealed to be a rebate). 2 As a result, an application of the factors set forth in United States v. Steele, 727 F.2d 580, 585-86 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1209 (1984), leads us to the conclusion that there was no Sixth Amendment violation. In Steele, the court followed the path laid down by the Supreme Court's opinion in Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545 (1977), identifying four relevant factors to the Sixth Amendment inquiry: 51 1) whether the [intrusion] was purposely caused by the government in order to garner confidential, privileged information, or whether the [intrusion] was the result of other inadvertent occurrences; 2) whether the government obtained, directly or indirectly, any evidence which was used at trial as the result of the ... intrusion; 3) whether any information gained by the ... intrusion was used in any other manner to the substantial detriment of the defendant; and 4) whether the details about trial preparations were learned by the government. 52 In this case, the ostensible purpose of the government's search was not to obtain confidential information, only to investigate alleged threats by Robinson; as already noted, no privileged information from the search was used at trial, aside (possibly) from West's Honda down payment defense; it does not appear that privileged information was used in any other manner detrimental to West; and no details of confidential trial preparations were learned (again, apart from the Honda issue). In other words, the only possible prejudice specifically identified by West is the information regarding the Honda down payment. Yet the FBI agent, upon direct questioning by the district court, appeared to satisfy the court that this information was discovered through independent means: discussions with the Honda dealer which had already been scheduled to take place. J.A. at 1389-90. Moreover, it is difficult to see how this information could have had any material impact on the outcome of the trial. The government had informed the district court that the same evidence of money laundering through the Honda was going to be introduced, anyway. J.A. at 1535. Without a more convincing showing of prejudice, we can only affirm the district court's denial of West's Sixth Amendment motion. 53