Opinion ID: 199492
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence to Support Prosecution

Text: 47 Of equal importance is that the district court's finding that there was no credible evidence upon which to pursue charges was clear error. The government had ample reason to investigate and pursue charges against the defendants, and indeed still had adequate cause to prosecute even after the suppression of evidence. Thus an award of attorneys' fees under the Hyde Amendment is clearly not warranted, given the failure to meet the first part of the test of vexatiousness: that the government's suit lacked either legal merit or factual foundation. 48 The EPA had ample reason to initiate an investigation of Knott and Riverdale Mills. In the summer of 1997, the EPA received an anonymous letter from an employee of the company indicating that the company was not complying with the pretreatment requirements set out in its agreement with the state, as embodied in its state permit to discharge industrial wastewater into the public sewer. Upon arriving to investigate this allegation on October 21, the EPA inspectors observed that, contrary to Knott's alleged representation that morning, the pretreatment system at the plant was not in operation. Indeed, although at the closing conference on the afternoon of October 21, the EPA inspectors discussed with Knott the fact that the pretreatment system was not operational and that low pH discharges into the public sewer were occurring as a result, when the EPA returned to conduct the November 7 search, the pretreatment system was still not operating properly. Interviews with Riverdale Mills employees that day confirmed that the pretreatment system had been out of operation for several months and that Knott was aware that it was not functioning. Defendants do not contest the fact that the pretreatment system was not in operation on either day but rather resort to arguments that other processes would dilute the wastewater before it reached the public sewer. 49 In addition, there was considerable direct evidence of a Clean Water Act violation. As defendants acknowledge, a single knowing discharge of wastewater with pH below 5.0 s.u. into the public sewer is sufficient to prosecute as a Clean Water Act violation. Here, at the time the government sought the indictment, it had over fifty samples that it considered direct evidence of discharges below pH 5.0 s.u. For the first count, covering October 21, the EPA had 13 samples from Manhole #1 below pH 3.0 s.u. and one disputed sample at Manhole #2 at pH around 4.0 s.u. For the second count, covering November 7, the EPA had over 40 samples below pH 5.0 s.u., including three below pH 3.0 s.u., all taken at Manhole #1. 50 The district court discounted much of this evidence as immaterial, giving two reasons: first, much of it resulted from samples taken at Manhole #1; and second, much of it was later suppressed. The decision not to consider the government's evidence taken at Manhole #1 is flawed, in two respects. First, at the time the government sought the indictment, the ownership of the street where Manhole #1 is located remained in dispute, and the government had a good faith legal argument that the relevant point of discharge into the public sewers was the first manhole. Therefore it was entitled to pursue charges based on discharges at Manhole #1. 51 More importantly, the district court's decision to disregard the sampling results at Manhole #1 misapprehends or ignores the relationship between sampling data collected at the first manhole and the acidity of Riverdale Mills's discharges into the public sewer, even if the public sewer begins only at the second manhole. The prosecution had ample evidence that the defendant discharged highly acidic water at the first manhole on both days. Even if the relevant public sewer does not begin until the second manhole 100 yards away, these samples still provide evidence that the water ultimately discharged by the defendants at the second manhole had a highly acidic content. That is particularly so in light of the EPA expert's conclusions. The EPA was not required to accept Knott's lay theory, not even advanced on appeal, that the slope of the pipes over that 100 yard distance ensured that pulses of highly acidic water would inevitably be neutralized by mixing with pulses of highly caustic water before they both hit Manhole #2. Nor was the EPA required to accept the later-advanced theory that the pipes were subject to so much groundwater infiltration that the groundwater would dilute the effluent down to an acceptable level over the short distance of 100 yards. By overlooking the bearing which the pH readings at the first manhole have on the acidity of discharges at the second, the district court committed clear error. 52 The defendants argue that the district court is free to accept or reject the conclusions of the EPA expert who stated that the groundwater infiltration rate would not sufficiently dilute highly acidic water within the 100 yard span of the sewer line under Riverdale Street. While this assertion may be true as to the ultimate factual determination, it misses the issue at stake in the application for fees under the Hyde Amendment, which is whether the EPA was vexatious in deciding to proceed in its prosecution. Even if the court or jury did not ultimately credit the EPA expert's conclusions, there is no evidence in the record to suggest that that expert was so wantonly and obviously wrong that the EPA was not entitled to rely upon his determinations in proceeding. Indeed his determination may well be correct. For these reasons, the evidence of samples below pH 3.0 s.u. at Manhole #1 remains credible evidence upon which the EPA was entitled to pursue charges. 53 Second, in concluding that the prosecution lacked any credible evidence, the district court erroneously discounted all the evidence that it had suppressed. For Hyde Amendment purposes, however, the court must assess the basis for pursuing charges from the perspective of the government at the time. Instead, the district court required undue prescience on the part of the government. The government was entitled, ab initio, to rely on the evidence subsequently suppressed in making its prosecutorial decision, provided it could articulate, in good faith, a reasonable position on the suppression issue. 54 There were genuine factual disputes regarding what happened on October 21, and the conditions which were imposed upon the consent to the EPA inspection were, at the very least, ambiguous. The government was entitled to rely on its evidence so long as it had a good-faith basis for contending that the evidence was admissible. The suppression issue presented here was not so clear cut as to deprive the prosecution of a reasonable basis for believing that its evidence was admissible. An interpretation of the Hyde Amendment which effectively requires the government precisely to anticipate later evidentiary rulings, where reasonable grounds for disagreement exist, is untenable in light of the language and purposes of the Hyde Amendment. 55 Indeed, even after the suppression ruling, there remained an adequate evidentiary foundation for the prosecution, at least as concerns the second count. There were three readings below pH 3.0 at the first manhole on November 7, each of which, in conjunction with the testimony of the EPA expert, could provide an adequate foundation for a Clean Water Act charge. In addition, the EPA directly observed that the pretreatment system was not in operation on either day, as corroborated through employee interviews. Moreover, there was evidence the system had not been in operation for some time, which Knott well knew. Although the EPA ultimately concluded that it would not proceed, there remained credible evidence to support a prosecution. Weighing the strength of the evidence and determining whether or not to prosecute are precisely the sorts of choices the government is entitled to make, based on information it has acquired through due diligence. 56 Since the EPA had a reasonably sufficient evidentiary basis upon which to pursue charges against the defendants, both before and even after the suppression ruling, and absent any finding or reason to believe that the government acted either out of malice or with any intent to harass or annoy, the fee award to Riverdale Mills constituted an abuse of discretion.