Opinion ID: 711056
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Limitations on Access to Discovery Materials

Text: 77 The Government gathered some 250,000 pages of documents in preparation for this trial. Mr. Nash was allowed to review these documents and mark those that were relevant to his defense; the marked items were then copied for Mr. Nash at government expense. Roughly 6000 additional pages were identified by the Government and provided by the Government before trial. It is, however, undisputed that Mr. Nash was given only approximately twenty hours in which to inspect the 250,000 pages of material. He argues that this period of time was insufficient. 78 While we agree that Mr. Nash's access to discovery materials was hardly optimal, we conclude that the limitations imposed on him were reasonable. The Government sensibly attempted to accommodate Mr. Nash's status by copying and identifying documents for him. While the time during which Mr. Nash could survey the discovery materials was brief, the district court found that the documents relevant to Mr. Nash's case composed only a small fraction of the 250,000 pages collected by the Government and, furthermore, were readily identifiable. Mr. Nash points to no evidence that suggests that these findings were clearly erroneous. We note, moreover, that Mr. Nash's access to the documents was constrained, at least in part, by the needs of his co-defendants. We hold therefore that the time provided Mr. Nash was sufficient under the circumstances. 79 Mr. Nash also contends that he was denied access to relevant personal papers (specifically, personal address books and day calendars) and that the Government failed to provide him with certain requested documents. The district court rejected the first of these claims on factual grounds, expressly declining to believe that Mr. Nash could not fit his address book and day calendar into the two boxes of material he was allowed in jail. In any event, Mr. Nash had the option to send his personal papers to his wife; he chose instead to leave his personal papers in storage at another facility. Mr. Nash does not point to any evidence that suggests that there findings are clearly erroneous, and they refute the claim at hand. 80 The Government concedes that Mr. Nash never received two of the documents which he marked for copying. There is absolutely no evidence to support the conclusion that this omission was purposeful. Furthermore, the district court found that Mr. Nash never brought the omission to the court's attention during trial or otherwise sought to obtain the documents in a timely manner. Under these circumstances, the failure to deliver the documents was unfortunate but does not require reversal.