Court Opinion

ID: 9468265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:09:46.615467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:46.974308
License: Public Domain

NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I believe the majority decides, unnecessarily, a novel Fifth Amendment question, yet fails to address squarely a nonconstitu-tional issue that I believe is dispositive of this appeal.
I agree with the majority that the defendant carries the initial burden of production on the issue of his inability to comply with a summons to produce documents, which, as the majority notes, is a defense to a charge of civil contempt. I also agree that once this initial burden is met, the government has the ultimate burden of persuading the court that the defendant is able to comply.
Where I have difficulty with the majority is its failure to analyze whether Rylander’s sworn statements were sufficient to meet his burden of production. The majority gives Rylander credit for nothing more than a general denial that he had any of the records called for by the summons, when in fact his response was much more detailed. In his oath of purgation, Rylander stated:
I know not the location of any such records, if any there be, or that any such records, if any there be, are in any way under my control or supervision or that I have in any way placed such records, if any there be, in the hands of other persons to hold for me. I further swear an oath that I have no intent, plan or purpose to withhold any such records, if any there be, from the Court. . ..
In my view, such a detailed statement denying under oath knowledge of the location of any such records or that any such records are in his possession or control should be sufficient to put into issue defendant’s “inability to comply” defense, shifting the burden of going forward back to the government. To require him to produce more evidence runs a serious risk of threatening a person with imprisonment for failure to do what may be difficult if not impossible for him to do, i. e., adduce evidence, beyond his own denials, to prove a negative — the nonexistence of the subpoenaed records or his lack of possession or control of such records. Cf. Battaglia v. United States, 653 F.2d 419 (9th Cir. 1981) (in a contempt proceeding for failure to answer questions before a grand jury, defendant’s testimony that he did not remember the events in question is sufficient to meet his burden of production on the issue of inability to comply)-
Like the majority, I agree that the case should be remanded to give the government an opportunity to carry its burden of persuasion that Rylander has the ability to produce the records. To be sure, in attempting to carry that burden the government may question Rylander concerning the existence of the records and any knowledge he may have of their whereabouts.1 Rylan-der may again decline to answer the questions on Fifth Amendment grounds, leaving it to the trial judge to determine whether his assertion of the privilege is bona fide. But there is no need to decide now what the majority seems to hold, i. e., that a defendant who fails to satisfy his burden of production on his inability to comply, may effectively carry that burden by claiming the Fifth Amendment privilege.

. The testimony of third parties concerning the whereabouts of the records as well as evidence “that the records sought are of a type ordinarily kept by corporations, and that a person in the defendant’s position would ordinarily have control over such records” would of course also be relevant to the question of defendant’s ability to comply.