Opinion ID: 1822747
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mail Cover

Text: The case upon which Booker relies to contend that the attorney-client privilege was violated when an agent of the State intercepted his mail is Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 97 S.Ct. 837, 51 L.Ed.2d 30 (1977). In that case, Weatherford was an undercover agent for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. See id. at 547, 97 S.Ct. 837. Weatherford was arrested with defendant Bursey for vandalizing a selective service office. See id. While maintaining his cover, Weatherford, at the request of Bursey and his counsel, attended two meetings where they discussed the upcoming trial. See id. at 547-48, 97 S.Ct. 837. At Bursey's trial, Weatherford appeared as a witness and testified with regard to his undercover activities. See id. at 549, 97 S.Ct. 837. After his conviction, Bursey filed a claim for violation of constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 asserting that Weatherford had communicated defense strategies to his superiors and prosecuting officials which he had learned in meetings with Bursey and his attorney, which deprived Bursey of the effective assistance of counsel and his right to a fair trial. See id. The United States Supreme Court ultimately concluded that Bursey's section 1983 claim failed because Weatherford did not communicate any defense strategy to the prosecution and did not purposefully intrude on the meetings between Bursey and his counsel. See id. at 558, 97 S.Ct. 837. The Court further explained: [W]e need not agree with petitioners that whenever a defendant converses with his counsel in the presence of a third party thought to be a confederate and ally, the defendant assumes the risk and cannot complain if the third party turns out to be an informer for the government who has reported on the conversations to the prosecution and who testifies about them at the defendant's trial. Had Weatherford testified at Bursey's trial as to the conversation between Bursey and Wise [Bursey's counsel]; had any of the State's evidence originated in these conversations; had those overheard conversations been used in any other way to the substantial detriment of Bursey; or even had the prosecution learned from Weatherford, an undercover agent, the details of the Bursey-Wise conversations about trial preparations, Bursey would have a much stronger case. Id. at 554, 97 S.Ct. 837. As the above analysis demonstrates, the Weatherford case addressed actual attorney-client communications; it did not involve Bursey speaking with or writing to a layperson. Further, the decisions which discuss the constitutional implications of intercepting inmate mail focus on legal mail rather than on correspondence with laypeople. See generally Davis v. Goord, 320 F.3d 346, 351 (2d Cir.2003) (Interference with legal mail implicates a prison inmate's rights to access to the courts and free speech as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.); Jensen v. Klecker, 648 F.2d 1179, 1182 (8th Cir.1981) (rejecting claim that the routine inspection of incoming and outgoing nonlegal mail constitutes a violation of [inmates'] civil rights); Thomsen v. Ross, 368 F.Supp.2d 961, 973-74 (D.Minn.2005) (A jailer who opens a prisoner's legal mail outside of the prisoner's presence may violate a prisoner's constitutional rights.). Booker does not present any case to support the proposition that if a government official or agent reads an inmate's nonlegal mail, the Sixth or Fourteenth Amendments become implicated. With this status of the law, we conclude that the key issue presented by this claim is whether the State interfered with Booker's legal mail, not whether the State (or its agent) ever accessed Booker's nonlegal mail. In the order denying postconviction relief, the trial court made very specific findings with regard to whether tampering with Booker's legal mail had occurred: The Defendant has failed to present any evidence demonstrating the Defendant's legal mail was tampered with by any agent of the State. The Defendant, likewise, failed to present any evidence that privileged communications, in any form, were impermissibly intercepted, interfered with, or used by any agent of the State. Not only does the evidence not support the Defendant's claim his legal mail was tampered with or that the State knowingly interfered with his attorney-client relationship, there is a great deal of evidence to support it was not. Following the denial of a postconviction claim where the trial court has conducted an evidentiary hearing, this Court affords deference to the trial court's factual findings. See Walls v. State, 926 So.2d 1156, 1165 (Fla.2006). If the trial court's findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence, this Court will not substitute its judgment for that of the trial court on questions of fact. See id. The same standard applies to the credibility of the witnesses as well as the weight to be given to the evidence by the trial court. See id. We conclude that the trial court's finding that neither the State nor its agent, Investigator Mick Price, tampered or interfered with Booker's legal mail is supported by competent, substantial evidence. Although the extensive facts developed during the evidentiary hearing reveal that some sort of mail cover may have occurred, and that Price may have retrieved mail from Florida State Prison, Booker has failed to identify a single piece of legal mail that was intercepted or touched by Price. Booker speculates that Price had collected some of Booker's mail, and, therefore, all mail in and all mail out of FSP was compromised by the `mail cover.' However, Booker offers absolutely no substantive proof to support this conclusory statement. Further, even if we were to assume that Price did collect some of Booker's legal mail under the mail cover, coprosecutors Rod Smith and Ralph Grabel denied ever having read any of Booker's mail, let alone his legal mail, and the trial court found their testimony to be credible. Cf. Pietri v. State, 885 So.2d 245, 272 (Fla.2004) (rejecting Weatherford claim where a document prepared by defense counsel's investigator was allegedly stolen and obtained by the State and noting that [t]he state attorney maintained that he never read nor had access to the stolen document, and defense counsel did not challenge that assertion). Further, the most compelling evidence that the State did not access Booker's legal mail was presented by Booker's resentencing counsel, Johnny Kearns. Kearns testified that he or one of his investigators had actually hand-delivered all but two pieces of correspondence to Booker, and the two pieces of mail that were sent to the prison did not contain any information with regard to the defense strategy. Moreover, Kearns testified that Booker took heightened precautions to ensure that his mail was not tampered with by writing either legal mail or a series of X's across the seal of the envelope, and Kearns saw no visible tampering or opening of the mail from the time that they were sealed to the time that [he] received them. Kearns stated that had he suspected that the State was tampering with Booker's legal mail, he would have objected because he would definitely have gotten concerned about the interception of legal mail. Competent, substantial evidence supports the trial court's conclusion that the State did not access, tamper with, or interfere with Booker's legal mail, and we affirm the trial court's denial of Booker's Weatherford claim. [6]