The Government’s [Subpoena] Power is Not Infinite

By: Ifrah Law

It’s not every day that a federal court likens an Assistant U.S. Attorney’s argument to that “of a grade schooler seeking to avoid detention.” But, in a recent opinion, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the D.C. District Court did just that. In so doing, he reminded us that—despite the government’s (admitted) routine abuse of its subpoena power—the privacy rights of inmates matter, and a standard practice is not tantamount to a legal basis.

The overall case, one involving an alleged conspiracy to commit visa fraud, had taken some rare procedural twists before landing in Judge Sullivan’s courtroom: for example, the government had effectively incarcerated Ms. Truc Huynh (a former co-defendant) to postpone her deportation to Vietnam and ensure her availability to testify at a deposition against a remaining co-defendant. The primary issue addressed in Judge Sullivan’s recent ruling, however, was whether the U.S. Attorney’s Office violated the law when it issued subpoenas to the Central Treatment Facility (a local jail) for Ms. Huynh’s visitation logs, call logs, and recorded telephone calls—without notifying the Court, Ms. Huynh, or the defendant against whom Ms. Huynh was set to testify.

As a general matter, Rule 17 governs the issuance of subpoenas in criminal cases and allows the government to subpoena a witness to testify at a hearing or trial and may require the concurrent production of documents. It does not, however, allow for pretrial fishing expeditions for potentially relevant information. But that is precisely what the government had done in this case by “inviting” the jail to comply with the subpoena by promptly providing the requested documents directly to the Assistant U.S. Attorney handling the case. Within a matter of days, the jail complied with the production of 200 recordings, which were in Ms. Huynh’s native Vietnamese.

After having initially agreed to the defendants’ request for English language transcripts, the government later argued that compliance would be unduly burdensome because (upon review) the calls appeared to be irrelevant to the case. In so doing, the government showed its hand: the Assistant U.S. Attorneys had, essentially, used the Court’s subpoena power to conduct a fishing expedition into Ms. Huynh’s private phone calls without specific reason to believe that the calls would be admissible at trial.

To make matters worse, a similar subpoena had been issued for the remaining defendant’s jailhouse calls. When defense counsels moved to quash the subpoenas, the Assistant U.S. Attorneys failed to offer any legal authority in support of their actions—arguing instead that this was their general practice and they didn’t know of any authority saying they couldn’t. Fortunately for the defendants, Judge Sullivan—known for holding the government to account (see, e.g., his handling of the Ted Steven’s trial and the IRS scandal)—was not inclined to excuse such behavior. At oral argument, the Judge pushed back, “So that’s your authority: There’s nothing that says we can’t do it?” and the Assistant U.S. Attorney responded: “Right … That’s my authority.” The Court was not persuaded.

In his written opinion, Judge Sullivan held that the government had, indeed, overstepped Rule 17 by “inviting” the subpoena recipient to provide pretrial production of the documents requested. The government’s assertion—that an “invitation” for pretrial discovery did not obligate pretrial discovery—was of no moment, neither were its arguments that defendants lacked standing. Judge Sullivan made clear that “[b]ecause subpoenas are issued with the Court’s seal and backed by the threat of court-posed sanctions, the mere fact that an attorney abuses the subpoena power directly implicates the court itself and creates an embarrassment for the institution.”

In the end, Judge Sullivan boldly vindicated the privacy interests of these individual defendants. It remains to be seen, however, if his opinion will stymie the government’s practice of “inviting” pretrial discovery without court approval.  If nothing else, perhaps the Assistant U.S. Attorneys appearing before Judge Sullivan will think twice before doing so.