Opinion ID: 3002122
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Foreign Funding

Text: Knox applied for funds to travel to West Africa to investigate and depose witnesses under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1) and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 15; the district judge denied his requests. 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1) authorizes investigative and expert expenditures on behalf of indigent defendants when necessary for adequate representation. We review a district court’s decision to grant or deny such funds under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1) for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Smith, 502 F.3d 680, 686 (7th Cir. 2007). Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure also permits a defendant to make a motion to depose witnesses—an unusual occurrence in a criminal case—when “exceptional circumstances” warrant it. This is also reviewed for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., United States v. Thomas, 62 F.3d 1332, 1340 (11th Cir. 1995); United States v. Kelley, 36 F.3d 1118, 1125 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In Smith, the defendant sought funds for a fingerprint expert. We explained that under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1) “[t]he government will give an indigent defendant access to expert services adequate to facilitate the defendant’s representation if the court finds that the services are necessary” and that they should be provided “where ‘a reasonable attorney would engage such services for a client having the independent financial means to pay for them.’ ” Smith, 502 F.3d at 686 (citing United States v. Cravens, 275 F.3d 637, 639 (7th Cir. 2001)). Furthermore, before granting the expenditures, the court may consider whether the defendant has a “plausible defense” as the 16 No. 07-2552 government does not have to “finance a fishing expedition.” United States v. King, 356 F.3d 774, 778 (7th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation omitted). We addressed the Rule 15 “exceptional circumstances” requirement briefly in United States v. Morrison, 946 F.2d 484, 490 (7th Cir. 1991), where we affirmed a district court’s denial of a request for money to travel to Puerto Rico to interview witnesses, take depositions, and investigate the scene of a drug ring’s alleged operations. We explained that “a showing of exceptional circumstances must be considerably more concrete and particularized than mere speculation about the possible need for depositions in the future.” Id. Beyond this brief treatment in Morrison, we have not had the occasion to outline any “test” for when the “exceptional circumstances” threshold would be met justifying authorization of foreign depositions; therefore we take note of some factors considered relevant by other circuits. The Ninth Circuit considered whether the deponent would be available at the proposed location of the deposition, whether the deponent would be willing to testify, and the safety of United States officials in going to the foreign location. See United States v. Olafson, 203 F.3d 560, 567 (9th Cir. 2000). The Eleventh Circuit focused on the materiality of the proposed testimony, the availability of the witness, whether injustice will otherwise result without the material testimony that the deposition could provide, and whether countervailing factors would make the deposition unjust to the nonmoving party. See Thomas, 62 F.3d at 1340-41. The D.C. Circuit listed as critical factors the materiality of the testimony and the unavailability of the witness to testify No. 07-2552 17 at trial and also noted that there is “typically some showing, beyond ‘unsubstantiated speculation,’ that the evidence exculpates the defendant.” Kelley, 36 F.3d at 1125 (citing cases from the Third, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits). As we described, Knox made many attempts to obtain authorization for expenses to investigate and depose witnesses in the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. We are not unsympathetic to his desire to investigate and depose witnesses there—he is correct that many of the events relevant to his case occurred there. However, we do not find that the district court abused its discretion in denying funds for a proposal accurately characterized by the district court as “problematic and unworkable.” Specifically, addressing Rule 15’s requirements, we conclude Knox’s request was not sufficiently “concrete and particularized” to justify authorizing the expenditures. Morrison, 946 F.2d at 490. Moreover, Knox’s request would fail under nearly all of the factors we cited from other circuits. Knox could not provide when or where the potential witnesses would be found. He had their addresses but offered nothing to establish the individuals would be present at any given date or time—or how he would get over the hurdle of no phone or email availability. For example, one witness’s address was in Sierra Leone, but Knox indicated that the witness was also believed to spend time in Côte d’Ivoire and that he might be found there; plans for tracking this witness down were not offered. Considering this search would involve crossing international borders, it is not 18 No. 07-2552 an insignificant question. Such an absence of attention to detail pervaded Knox’s entire request.5 Similarly, the materiality of the potential testimony seemed based entirely on conjecture and speculation. No details were given regarding the expected substance of their testimony or how it would exculpate Knox. Knox also did not disclose any basis, other than a familial relation to the defendant, for why these individuals would be willing to testify voluntarily. There was also a rather cavalier attitude toward international law and diplomatic concerns raised by the district judge. Knox argued that such matters were not his concern; nevertheless, surely he cannot expect a United States court to authorize such expenses to engage in investigating terrorist group membership without detail on the legality of investigating and taking depositions in these countries. In the end Knox simply did not demonstrate the requisite “exceptional circumstances” for Rule 15 depositions. Knox argues that he may have been able to furnish these answers if he had been given investigative funding under § 3006A(e)(1). He asserts that his request was a twostep process and that he could have been given funds to 5 In essence, Knox was seeking funds to first find these individuals, then to interview them, and only after that to announce whether he would seek to depose them. If nothing else was flawed about this request, the holding pattern that would be imposed on the attorney for the government raises serious concerns. Government counsel would need to be in a position to be in an unspecified location in West Africa, perhaps on short notice, for an indefinite period. No. 07-2552 19 go investigate, after which he could satisfy the Rule 15 requirements. But we conclude his § 3006A(e)(1) requests failed for many of the same reasons. He could not provide sufficient details for the trip regarding when, where, and how he would make contact with the wit- nesses. We understand that there were difficulties given the undeveloped communications infrastructure in some areas; however, Knox did not suggest how he intended to overcome this challenge. He provided only a vague trip itinerary, and the estimated expenses were equally broad and without detail, as well as possibly in excess of the statutory amount. See 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(3) (“Compensation to be paid to a person for services rendered by him to a person under this subsection, or to be paid to an organization for services rendered by an employee thereof, shall not exceed $1,600, exclusive of reimbursement for expenses reasonably incurred, unless payment in excess of that limit is certified by the court . . . .”). His “spreadsheet” for the 12-day trip had only six itemized entries and totaled $34,565.30. (Although in a later motion he did indicate the costs would be less.) Knox did not make a convincing showing that these expenses were “necessary” for adequate representation and that “a reasonable attorney would engage such services for a client having the independent financial means to pay for them.” To recap, while Knox was persistent in his requests, those requests simply did not provide enough information to justify granting them. He had not contacted potential witnesses; he could not provide a proposed itinerary; he did not sufficiently address the practical or diplomatic 20 No. 07-2552 issues inherently related to going to foreign countries for these purposes. He could not provide the government with notice of when or where such depositions might occur or even a proposal of how this might be arranged. While some difficulties making arrangements to interview and depose these witnesses may be understandable given the remote areas being dealt with, it is those very circumstances and the nature of this case (involving terrorist activities and rebel groups) which heightened the concerns and made the need for planning more acute. Too many unknowns remained unresolved and unre- searched for the government to foot the bill for what appeared a bit like a “fishing expedition” into seemingly unknown and potentially shark-infested waters. Knox has not shown on appeal that the district court abused its discretion in denying the requests. We also note that Knox presented a constitutional argument on this issue, specifically raising his Sixth Amendment right to present a defense. However, as Knox admitted in his brief, this right “is not unlimited and may ‘bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process.’ ” Horton v. Litscher, 427 F.3d 498, 504 (7th Cir. 2005) (quoting Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 295 (1973)). Requiring more from Knox in this instance to support his requests was quite reasonable and clearly in furtherance of other legitimate interests. Certainly, there are occasionally situations where procedural rules must bend to the demands of the Constitution. See, e.g., Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302-03. Knox, however, has presented no compelling reason that the rules applied here, Rule 15 and § 3006A, should bend to accommodate his No. 07-2552 21 “fishing expedition,” and he has presented no persuasive argument that the rules were “arbitrary” or “disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.” Horton, 427 F.3d at 503 (“[R]ules ‘designed to assure both fairness and reliability in the ascertainment of guilt and innocence’ . . . do not abridge an accused’s right to present a defense so long as they are not ‘arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve.’ ” (quoting Chambers, 410 U.S. at 302 and Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 56 (1987)). We do not find that his constitutional rights were violated, especially since he fell short in establishing the materiality of the potential testimony and the availability of any of the potential witnesses and did not establish the “necessity” of the funding, as we discussed supra. Cf. United States v. Loggins, 486 F.3d 977, 982 (7th Cir. 2007) (finding the evidence at issue “lack[ed] th[e] exculpatory significance and the reliability necessary to support a Sixth Amendment violation”).