Opinion ID: 4157618
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Appeal Pursuant to the Common Law

Text: Even if the SCA did not confer a right to appeal (that is, even if New York law governed appealability), Facebook could appeal Supreme Court's order, which is analogous to an order - 20 - - 21 - No. 16 denying a motion to quash a subpoena in a criminal investigation, under the common law of New York State.17 The majority and I agree on the framework used to resolve that issue. As their opinion sets out in more detail, it is a fundamental precept of the jurisdiction of our appellate courts that 'no appeal lies from a determination made in a criminal proceeding unless specifically provided for by statute' (People v Lovett, 25 NY3d 1088, 1090 [2015], quoting People v Pagan, 19 NY3d 368, 370 [2012]). However, I believe the majority has misconstrued the authority it cites for the proposition that while a subpoena does not commence a criminal proceeding, the issuance of a warrant does just that. The majority starts by citing CPL 1.20 [18], which states: 'Criminal proceeding' means any proceeding which (a) constitutes a part of a criminal action or (b) occurs in a criminal court and is related to a prospective, pending or completed criminal action, either of this state or of any other jurisdiction, or involves a criminal investigation. That section does not distinguish between subpoenas and warrants, and therefore does not support the majority's proposition. 17 Had Supreme Court found against the District Attorney, his office would have been entitled to benefit from a symmetrical appeal (see e.g., People v Still, 48 AD2d 366 [1975]). The appellate courts are open equally to the government and the service provider, and there is no reason to think that acknowledging motions to quash SCA warrants are appealable may not benefit the District Attorney in the next case. - 21 - - 22 - No. 16 The majority next cites Cayuga Indian Nation of N.Y. v Gould (14 NY3d 614 [2010]). That case squarely contradicts the majority's holding here. In Cayuga Indian Nation, several district attorneys served warrants on the Nation, concerning possible prosecutions for the unlawful sale of cigarettes. The next day, the Nation filed a declaratory judgment action contending that the district attorneys lacked the power to obtain a search warrant or seize property and demanded the return of the confiscated items (id. at 631). We recognized that [t]he general rule is that, once a criminal action has been initiated, a criminal defendant may not bring a declaratory judgment action to raise a statutory interpretation or other issue that can be adjudicated in the criminal prosecution (id. at 633). The district attorneys sought to dismiss the declaratory judgment motion, arguing that under the Criminal Procedure Law, the filing of a search warrant application commences a 'criminal proceeding' (see CPL 1.20 [18] . . . ) (id. at 634). We rejected the district attorneys' argument, and allowed the Nation to proceed, holding the following, which directly contradicts the majority's position here: Our holding in Kelly's Rental did not expand the rule precluding the use of declaratory judgment actions to encompass situations like this one where a search warrant application was executed but no party was named as the defendant and no accusatory instrument had been filed against any person or company at the time civil relief was sought. A search warrant often targets a place without - 22 - - 23 - No. 16 identifying a defendant. As such, it is not accurate to say that, in every case where a search warrant application has been filed, a criminal prosecution has been commenced, particularly since a warrant may be requested long before a decision is made to file criminal charges. A party is not categorically precluded from initiating a declaratory judgment action based on nothing more than the execution of a search warrant when the issue to be raised involves a pure question of law -- such as a query concerning the scope and interpretation of a statute or a challenge to its constitutional validity -- and the facts relevant to that issue are undisputed, as they are here. Because no criminal action had been initiated against any identified party at the time this declaratory judgment action was commenced, the decision whether the action could be entertained fell soundly within the realm of discretion possessed by the lower courts and we discern no abuse of that discretion in the denial of the motion to dismiss. (id. at 634-635) The majority finally relies on Matter of B.T. Prods. v Barr (54 AD2d 315, 319 [4th Dept 1976], affd 44 NY2d 226 [1978]). There, pursuant to a warrant, the Organized Crime Task Force seized all of B.T. Products' records for a two-year period. B.T. Products sought a writ of prohibition, contending that the Task Force lacked the authority to do so. We affirmed B.T. Products' right to proceed with its writ of prohibition, writing: In most cases, prohibition will not be available to challenge the validity of a search warrant. For one thing, it will lie only if the challenge, as in the present case, goes to jurisdiction rather than simply to the existence of probable cause in a particular situation. Of equal significance is the fact that in the typical case there - 23 - - 24 - No. 16 will exist an adequate alternative remedy. A search warrant is most often used to obtain evidence in the course of a criminal investigation of a particular crime, an investigation which will soon eventuate in a criminal proceeding. In such cases, the validity of the search warrant will of course be subject to challenge by means of a motion to suppress, the denial of which is appealable in the context of an appeal from the resultant conviction. Here, however, there is no prosecution, and there is no indication that there ever will be a prosecution, and thus there is no opportunity for a motion to suppress. To allow the failure to prosecute, a failure which may well be due to the absence of sufficient grounds to prosecute, to serve as a shield for the allegedly illegal seizure and retention of private property by government agents would be to make a mockery of justice. This is indeed a proper case for application of the just and ancient writ of prohibition. (id. at 233) Far from supporting the proposition that the issuance of a warrant always commences a criminal proceeding, whereas the issuance of a subpoena does not, the majority's precedents establish three propositions contrary to its holding today: (1) the issuance of a warrant does not always bar the warrant's target from commencing a collateral proceeding to attack it; (2) so long as no criminal action had been initiated against any identified party, challenges to the warrant need not be restricted to the forthcoming criminal prosecution; and (3) when the target of the warrant is not the target of the potential prosecution, that person will have no adequate alternative remedy other than a collateral challenge to the warrant, which - 24 - - 25 - No. 16 cuts sharply in favor of entertaining the challenge to the warrant. Because the majority has interpreted our precedents to state an inflexible rule that does not, until now, exist, it should hardly be surprising that a formidable line of authority allows the direct appeal of orders granting or denying motions to quash subpoenas, even those issued in criminal investigations if prior to the commencement of a criminal action (Matter of Cunningham v Nadjari, 39 NY2d 314, 317 [1976]). Such motions, we have reasoned, are not made in a criminal proceeding. Rather, they are final orders in special proceedings on the civil side of a court vested with civil jurisdiction (id.). Those precedents are indistinguishable from Facebook's situation, unless one woodenly applies warrant and subpoena. For example, in Matter of Abrams (62 NY2d 183 [1984]), we held that recipients of subpoenas issued by the Attorney General, in furtherance of a criminal ticket-scalping investigation, could move to quash the subpoenas, which decision was appealable, even though the employees themselves (unlike Facebook here) were the targets of the investigation. In Matter of Boikess v Aspland (24 NY2d 136 [1969]) we entertained the appeal of motions to quash subpoenas issued as part of a criminal investigation of marijuana use by Stony Brook professors. Again, the subpoena targets were themselves the potential criminal defendants, which is not the case here. - 25 - - 26 - No. 16 In determining whether proceedings should be properly characterized as civil or criminal, this Court has eschewed a label-based test and instead consistently adhered to looking to the true nature of the proceeding and to the relief sought (Abrams, 62 NY2d at 191).18 The majority applies this test and concludes that the SCA bulk warrants operate more like traditional search warrants than like the subpoenas at issue in People v Doe (272 NY 453 [1936]) and its progeny. Here, the majority and I part ways. The SCA warrants operate more like subpoenas than like traditional search warrants in several significant, and determinative, respects.19 First, rather than permitting state 18 Abrams does not require a proceeding to be closely analogous to a motion to quash a subpoena to inaugurate a special civil proceeding incident to, but separate from, a criminal one. In fact, Abrams itself extended not only to a motion to quash a subpoena, but also to a motion to disqualify an attorney. The proper analysis, then, should focus on the true nature of the proceedings (here, essentially, a disclosure request served on an innocent third party), and not on whether the SCA bulk warrants operate more like traditional search warrants or subpoenas. Nevertheless, because the bulk warrants do operate more like subpoenas, I leave that issue for another day. 19 The delegates to the 1938 Constitutional Convention themselves thought the term warrants poorly characterized the type of order that should be required to seize electronic communications. As one of the leading proponents of what became the relevant sentence of article I, § 12 noted, The proposal of Senator Dunnigan uses the words, 'ex parte orders.' I believe such terminology is better, I think it fits more effectively the work of district attorneys; I think a warrant implies some kind of service on a person, and to use the words 'ex parte orders' makes it clear that it can be obtained from a court and it can be kept secret (Revised Record at 471). Although Section 12 as ultimately drafted requires ex parte orders or warrants as the - 26 - - 27 - No. 16 actors to seize property or private information directly, as traditional warrants do, the SCA warrants compel a third party (Facebook) to expend resources producing documents for an investigation. Second, unlike traditional warrants, service providers are not the targets of, or in any way involved in, the underlying investigation but are instead the neutral repositories of electronic information. Third, service providers must preserve information pending the resolution of a motion to quash (§ 2703 [f]). As a result, SCA warrants can be challenged before compliance, and the results of that challenge can be appealed, without tipping off the subjects of the investigation or otherwise compromising the state's interest in the preservation of evidence. Fourth, our legal system is based on the adversarial process. Ex parte proceedings are a sharp departure from the norm, permissible only when required by exigent circumstances. Such circumstances, often present in the case of traditional warrants, are absent here. The District Attorney, who argued at Supreme Court that the notice provisions governing traditional search warrants under CPL 690.50 did not apply to SCA warrants because of the unusual manner in which those warrants were issued and executed, recognized that the 381 orders at issue here operated more like subpoenas than warrants in some seemingly inadvertent result of a broader, and rushed, compromise between the doughty Senator Dunnigan and his chief Republican adversary, even that final language supports the conclusion that the delegates, too, considered the 1938 precursor of the SCA warrant to be a hybrid. - 27 - - 28 - No. 16 respects.20 Indeed, the fact that parallel provisions of the SCA contemplate allowing the government to subpoena, without notice to Facebook's customers, nearly all of the material it requested is fatal to the District Attorney's effort to distinguish the true nature of the two types of order (§ 2703 [b] [1] [B] [i]; § 2705; see Microsoft, 829 F3d at 227 [2d Cir 2016] [Lynch, J., concurring]. The execution of SCA warrants so closely resembles the execution of traditional subpoenas and civil document requests that no other aspects need to be considered.21 Nevertheless, the prior cases and the parties suggest several other factors that bear on an Abrams-like inquiry into whether the underlying proceeding is more criminal than civil in nature. Those factors also tend to support the conclusion that Facebook has a right to appeal. Abrams itself focused on whether the contested motion could arise in the context of a purely civil suit and on whetherrelief sought had anything inherently to do with criminal substantive or 20 The majority asserts that SCA warrants are governed by the same substantive and procedural laws as traditional search warrants, but cites CPL 690 and 700, and People v Tambe (71 NY2d 492 [1988]) -- all of which concern wiretapping warrants, not SCA warrants. 21 The majority's contention that SCA warrants are governed by the same substantive and procedural laws as traditional search warrants (majority op at __) conflates the manner of their issuance with the manner of their execution and ignores the fact at the heart of this case: SCA warrants differ from their traditional counterparts in significant part because Congress declared their recipients could move to quash or modify the orders. - 28 - - 29 - No. 16 procedural law (as well as on the uncertainty that criminal charges would ever be filed against particular respondents, discussed infra at n 22) (Abrams at 193-194). Because the SCA warrants are substantively identical to subpoenas, and because motions to quash subpoenas arise and are relieved in civil suits, Facebook satisfies Abrams' test. Although the relief Facebook seeks may include a review of a court's determination of probable cause, that review is not inherent in its motion to quash, which a court could grant because of a determination that the warrants injured Facebook's business interests in a manner that had nothing to do with criminal substantive or procedural law. Indeed, the issue properly before us on appeal is whether Facebook can appeal a determination that it lacked standing to move to quash the warrants. That jurisdictional determination has nothing to do with the criminal law and can be appealed and settled without reviewing issues of probable cause, causing substantial delay, or giving rise to interminable interlocutory appeals. Thecontention that an SCA warrant is not civil by nature because it commences a criminal proceeding under CPL 1.20 (18) and can be issued only to a governmental entity upon a showing of probable cause misses the point. The question is not whether the warrant itself was issued in a criminal proceeding, but whether the motion to quash gave rise -– as so often under Doe and its progeny -– to a civil proceeding, with its own index number, - 29 - - 30 - No. 16 collateral to and discrete from the criminal one that birthed it. That is precisely what happened here. The District Attorney's argument that the text of the statute refers to Section 2703 (a) orders as warrants, and that the Second Circuit has found Congress intended them to be treated as warrants, is also unpersuasive. Although the Second Circuit is not required to adopt Abrams' anti-textualist approach, our longstanding practice requires we abjure simple heuristics and instead determine the true nature of the proceeding. Furthermore, the nature of the SCA bulk warrants was a close question for that court (see Matter of Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation, --- F3d ---, ----- [2d Cir 2017] [Jacobs, J., dissenting]; id. at ----- [Cabranes, J., dissenting]; id. at --- -- [Raggi, J., dissenting]; id. at ----- [Droney, J., dissenting]; see also In re Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled & Maintained by Microsoft Corp. [15 F Supp 3d at 471] [calling the order a hybrid: part search warrant and part subpoena]), and Judge Carney's majority opinion turned in significant part on her finding that the SCA's primary emphasis was on protecting user content (Microsoft, 829 F3d at 201, 205206, 217-219, 222; Microsoft, --- F3d at ---). In Microsoft, the statute's purpose was served by finding Section 2703 (a) orders were issued like warrants for the purposes of extraterritorial - 30 - - 31 - No. 16 application; here, it is served by recognized those orders are executed like subpoenas for the purposes of motions to quash. An unstated common practice behind our precedents supports Facebook's right to appeal. Although our series of short memoranda affirming or denying leave to appeal have not offered explicit and extensive guidance on how to determine whether an underlying proceeding is more criminal or civil in nature, a line of Appellate Division cases invoked by Facebook suggests the pivotal consideration is whether the denial of an appeal . . . at this juncture would irrevocably preclude [a party] from any opportunity to vindicate its position before an appellate body (People v Marin, 86 AD2d 40, 42 [3d Dept 1982]). Those cases create a dichotomy between (a) appeals where either of the immediate parties to an underlying criminal action can continue to contest the propriety of an order on the direct appeal from any resulting judgment of conviction and (b) appeals by innocent third parties who would have no other day in court (id.). A survey of the cases resolved by this Court suggests the rule ascribed to us by the Appellate Division not only squares with traditional notions of justice but also has considerable predictive power.22 Because Facebook is here to protect its own 22 See e.g., Matter of Di Brizzi (303 NY 206 [1953] [individual could appeal the denial of a motion to quash a subpoena ordering he testify before the governor's crime commission, a body without the power to charge or try defendants]); Matter of Hynes v Karassik (47 NY2d 659 [1979] [respondent previously acquitted in a criminal trial could appeal an order unsealing the records of that case]); Matter of Codey - 31 - - 32 - No. 16 rights, not only the rights of its users, and because no one contends it will have any other opportunity to assert its own rights on appeal, it should be able under the New York common law (82 NY2d 521 [1993] [reporter subject to a State of New Jersey subpoena to reveal confidential sources, who presence was demanded by New Jersey pursuant to CPL 640.10 (2), could appeal the CPL 640 determination]); People v Santangello (38 NY2d 536 [1976] [petitioner who had allegedly participated in the bribery of police officers could not appeal the denial of an order directing the prosecutor to admit the petitioner was the subject of electronic surveillance]); Matter of Alphonso C. (38 NY2d 923 1976 [1976] [respondent who owned the car used in an attempted homicide could not appeal an order directing him to appear in a police line-up; separate appellant suspected of grand larceny could not appeal an order directing him provide a handwriting sample]); Bernstein v New York County District Attorney (67 NY2d 852 [1985] [petitioner could not appeal the disclosure of notices of tax deficiency to prosecutors]). Indeed, the only exceptions appear to be Abrams itself (allowing witnesses who might someday be charged with the illegal sale and distribution of tickets to large events) and Boikess (allowing university professors suspected of smoking pot with their students to move to quash). The aberration in Abrams can be explained by the Court's suspicions that the investigation may result in no criminal charges or criminal complaints being filed at all (Abrams at 193). In either case, both Abrams and Boikess depart from the Appellate Division's taxonomy to allow an appeal Marin might have foreclosed. Cases in which an appeal was dismissed from a proceeding arising in a court with limited and exclusively criminal jurisdiction (see e.g., Matter of Ryan [Hogan], 306 NY 11 [1961] [dismissing appeal from order of Court of General Sessions of County of New York]) or that resulted from an innocent third party's effort to intervene in an ongoing investigation (see Newsday, 3 NY3d 651) are outside the scope of Marin and inapposite to the issue at hand. The Supreme Court possesses civil and criminal jurisdiction (Abrams, 62 NY 2d at 191), and, contrary to the government's assertion, Facebook is not seeking to involve itself in a criminal process. Instead, we are here because its involvement has been compelled by the District Attorney. - 32 - - 33 - No. 16 to present the case for its motion to quash before the Appellate Division -– and, if necessary, before this Court. If it cannot, there will be no opportunity for the Appellate Division or this Court to harmonize the decisions of our trial courts with one another, with our interpretation of the law, or with the requirements of the SCA –- forcing the federal due process and New York constitutional issues on the Court.