United States v. Garrison

147 F. Supp. 3d 1173, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165059, 2015 WL 7982472
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedDecember 3, 2015
DocketCriminal Case No. 14-cr-231-WJM
StatusPublished

This text of 147 F. Supp. 3d 1173 (United States v. Garrison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Garrison, 147 F. Supp. 3d 1173, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165059, 2015 WL 7982472 (D. Colo. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER ON PENDING MOTIONS

William J. Martinez, United States District Judge

Before the Court are seven motions seeking discovery from the Government and two motions attacking the indictment. For the reasons explained below, the Court denies, all of the discovery motions (either as moot, premature, or insufficiently supported). The Court reserves ruling on. the motions attacking the indictment in light of its Order on Procedures. (See ECF No. 99 ¶ 8(a).).

I. BACKGROUND

• This sixteen-defendant case ■ principally involves what the Government alleges to [1177]*1177be a large conspiracy to distribute cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. (See ECF No. 10.) The Government used a number of Title III wiretaps while investigating the alleged conspiracy. According to Defendant Garrison, the Government obtained these wiretaps, by representing that they would be used .to investigate “large-scale drug distribution and/or the Gangster Disciples street gang.” (ECF No. 611 at 2.)

II. MOTION FOR SPECIFIC DISCOVERY (ECF No. 611)

A. Garrison’s Requests

Garrison’s 60-page Motion for Specific Discovery is extensive and reminiscent of the wide-ranging, often questionably relevant requests for production typically seen in civil litigation. His requests may be summarized as follows:

• essentially all information the Government has developed regarding the Gangster Disciples since January 2012, including information developed for other prosecutions .and information about confidential informants (ECF No. 611 at 29-35);
• information in the Government’s possession about the Aurora Police Department’s investigation of a homicide (allegedly linked to Garrison) of a confidential informant (id. at 35-38);
• all information obtained by the Government regarding “Operation Red Dawn,” a local law enforcement investigation that apparently partially overlapped with the Government’s investigation of the Gangster Disciples (id. at 38-41);
• documents generated with respect to the Government’s various confidential informants used in the Gangster Disciples investigation (id. at 39-48);
• information regarding whether investigating agencies employed “parallel construction,” an alleged tactic by which law enforcement agencies prepare two files for each investigation, one that tells the entire story of the investigation, and another that has been “sanitized” of sensitive information (id. at 48-51);
• the results of any analysis performed on raw data (i.e., phone numbers) obtained through pen registers, trap and trace devices, or administrative subpoena of phone records (id. at 51-54);
• all information regarding any member of the Gangster Disciples, and regarding any individual named in a wiretap application whose communications would be intercepted, contained in any database on which the Government relied, and all analyses of information gleaned from these databases (id. at 54-60).

Garrison seeks this information in hopes of gathering more evidence to support an anticipated “motion to suppress [the] evidence obtained pursuant to the Title III interceptions.” (ECF No. 611.)

Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 governs electronic eavesdropping by-law enforcement officials. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-22. Given the extraordinary danger that wiretaps pose to Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, wiretaps are not to loe routinely employed in criminal investigations. United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 515, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974). Indeed, to obtain a wiretap, warrant, the Government must first satisfy a court that numerous prerequisites have been met, most of which go beyond what would- be necessary to establish traditional probable cause for a search warrant. See generally 18 U.S.C. § 2518.

For each category of information-that Garrison requests, he argues that it would [1178]*1178assist him to establish the Government’s alleged failure to satisfy various Title III prerequisites, thus supporting a motion to suppress. However, although numerous cases discuss a court’s obligations when a defendant moves to suppress on these grounds, Garrison does not cite — and this Court could not find — any case regarding whether a defendant is entitled to discovery to assist him or her in developing such a motion. This is all the more telling given that Garrison’s motion contains a 20-page “Law” section describing (in the abstract) various legal grounds for discovery and suppression, yet none of Garrison’s cited authorities mention discovery for purposes of preparing a Title III challenge. Moreover, in the ensuing 31 pages of specific requests and explanations for those requests, the Court counts' a total of nine citations to legal authority — and again, none relates to discovery for purposes of preparing a Title III challenge.

This does not necessarily meah that a defendant may never obtain such discovery. Nonetheless, “[t]here is no general constitutional right to discovery in a criminal case.” Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 559, 97 S.Ct. 837, 51 L.Ed.2d 30 (1977). The Government’s pretrial discovery obligations instead rest largely on four authorities: (1) Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), which holds that due process requires prosecutors to disclose to defendants potentially exculpatory evidence; (2) Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972), which holds that exculpatory evidence includes evidence affecting witness credibility if the witness’s reliability will likely determine guilt or innocence; (3) Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16; which establishes a number of specific discovery obligations; and (4) the Court’s inherent authority to order discovery in certain circumstances. Each will be discussed in turn.

B. Brady and Giglio

To the extent Garrison claims that the information he requests must be disclosed under Brady or Giglio, the Government affirms that it is aware of its obligations under those cases, that it has already supplied' the relevant information in its possession, and that it “will continue to provide the materials required by these cases and subsequent decisions.” (ECF No. 678 at 1-2.) The Court has no reason to doubt this assertion.

Garrison nonetheless appears to be arguing that much of what he now requests somehow falls under Brady or Gig-lio and should be disclosed.

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Bluebook (online)
147 F. Supp. 3d 1173, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165059, 2015 WL 7982472, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-garrison-cod-2015.