Mr. Ring and his lawyers are casting what the government contends is an excessively wide net in its discovery demands. This includes transcripts and notes relating to individuals who will not be witnesses and are not part of the conspiracy.
Page 8
Ring has requested grand jury transcripts and interview reports of various individuals who will not be government witnesses, arguing that they are discoverable under Brady or otherwise. The government does not agree that all such transcripts and interview reports are discoverable. Nevertheless, the government has provided or will provide by July 15, 2009 the following items:
The government agreed to provide grand jury transcripts and interview notes of people that the government doesn't even plan to use as witnesses. Basically, it sounds that if Mr. Ring's name was mentioned or events described in the indictment are discussed, the government will provide the document. Fair enough. But what I find most interesting is this disclaimer made by government lawyers:
Page 9
The government will interview numerous public officials over the coming months as a result of other prosecutions arising from the Abramoff investigation. As the trial team obtains reports memorializing those interviews, they will be added to the trial team’s database and searched and produced as described above.
"As a result of other prosecutions arising from the Abramoff investigation." That phrase is a little ambiguous to me. One interpretation is that the "other prosecutions" refer to recent guilty pleas by Ann Copland, Todd Boulanger and others. Under this theory, investigators are learning more about Mr. Ring from these recent guilty pleas and this is resulting in new interviews. Alternatively, the "other prosecutions" may refer to cases being built against other figures in the conspiracy that we don't know about yet. This would mean more guilty pleas and/or indictments may come in the future. Either way, it sounds like the government is learning more and more about Mr. Ring's activities in the alleged Abramoff conspiracy every day.
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One thing that annoys me about lawyers is that too many of them think that their obligation to zealously represent their clients gives them license to act like jerks. Mr. Ring's defense team seems to exemplify this behavior.
Mr. Ring's lawyers have made unreasonable discovery demands:
Pages 10-11
The government and Ring disagree as to what constitutes Brady material in this case. Nevertheless, the government believes that the discovery process outlined above will satisfy the government’s obligations to disclose evidence under Brady, Giglio, and their progeny. The government would prefer to resolve any disagreement on this issue by providing all of the documents Ring seeks, regardless of whether such materials are exculpatory. The government cannot do so, however, because Ring has asserted, in six separate letters, myriad vague and unbounded categories of “evidence” that he contends constitute Brady materials, which categories extend far beyond what would be exculpatory as to Ring and far beyond the contours of this case.
For example, in the first of ten supposed Brady demands set forth in a February 24, 2009 letter, Ring demands any and all evidence that any public official whom Ring or a coconspirator ever lobbied took any action for any noncorrupt reason: “[a]ny evidence that a public official lobbied by Mr. Ring or one of his alleged co-conspirators made a decision or took an action for or because of factors other than the official's receipt of a thing of value . . . .” Elsewhere in that letter, Ring demands “[a]ny statement by any individual stating that they [sic] did not believe they had committed a crime or otherwise asserting innocence.” Ring’s demands simply are not limited to the contours of this case.
The government cannot conceive of a means of locating or producing the entirety of the boundless, mostly irrelevant information that Ring demands. Accordingly, the government has notified Ring that it may have to litigate some of these issues and ask the Court to resolve the scope of the government’s Brady obligations in this case.
In the first paragraph, the government basically says that whether or not it thinks a particular document is exculpatory to Mr. Ring, if Mr. Ring wants it, he gets it. Sounds more than fair, doesn't it? This apparently isn't good enough for Mr. Ring's lawyers.
The indictment of Kevin Ring identifies gifts and official acts that the government alleges are part of the grand Team Abramoff conspiracy. Certainly if the government is in possession of evidence that the decision to take official action of one of the items in the indictment was based on a non-corrupt reason, the government should provide that evidence to Mr. Ring's defense. But based on the government's characterization of the letter from Mr. Ring's defense, it seems Mr. Ring's attorneys want any evidence that any of Mr. Ring's alleged co-conspirators based any decision on non-corrupt factors -- even if that decision is not the basis of any part of Mr. Ring's indictment.
Mr. Ring's defense team should stick to the allegations in my opinion. They are being unreasonable by taking this excessively broad view that the government should provide evidence regarding acts not mentioned in the indictment. Such evidence wouldn't be exculpatory to Mr. Ring anyway.
The government's plan to litigate this unreasonable discovery demand is sound. Look, as a fiscal conservative, I typically don't like most government expenditures. But every penny spent prosecuting Kevin Ring and this gang of miscreants is money well spent.
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