Court Opinion

ID: 9442633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:54:03.084811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:09.913121
License: Public Domain

LINDLEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am sorry that I can not agree with the majority. It seems to me that my brethren read Rule 17(c) out of the hooks, — completely delete it. Rule 16 provides for the production of certain documents. Rule 17 (c) authorizes a subpoena duces tecum,— an age-old expedient for securing the production of documents at the trial. However, it adds an innovation, in that the documents subpoenaed may be ordered produced prior to trial, for inspection. If we ignore this plain provision, then defendants may have only the documents mentioned in Rule 16; they may not have access to the additional documents authorized by 17(c); they are thereby completely prevented from employing the means provided by 17(c). Such a conclusion, it seems to me, does violence to the plain language of the rule.
That the documents subpoenaed were in the possession of the person to whom the subpoena was addressed is, as pointed out by Judge Duffy, admitted. Whether they were material or relevant was a question for the court. Why should the fact that the person who has the documents happens to be an attorney destroy the rule? I know of no principle of law that exempts from service and enforcement of a subpoena or from giving testimony one who has documents merely because he is an attorney in the case, whether for the complaining party or the defending party. Could the defendants successfully object to a similar subpoena served upon one of their counsel, commanding him to produce documents in his possession for inspection, as the rule provides, simply because it is addressed to one who is counsel in the case? I think not.
I agree with Judge Major that there is no conflict between the two rules and that each is “designed to serve a separate and distinct purpose.” But I must part company with him when he concludes that we must absolve the government from compliance with a rule general in terms and applicable to any person merely because the person named in the subpoena happens to be a lawyer for the government.
I recognize that the extent of the relief to be granted under Rule 17(c) lies wholly within the discretion of the trial court, and were it appellant’s contention that the District Court abused its discretion, we might have something to talk about. But no such question has been raised either in the trial court or here.