Prosecutors to appeal in case over e-discovery limits

http://ow.ly/bE9sT

A report on the Thomson Reuters News & Insight website, reporting credit provided for Jessica Dye.

This article discusses a Federal criminal proceeding taking place in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the case discussed is, U.S. v. Metter et al, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No 10-600.  The criminal case involved allegations of stock fraud involving a "pump and dump" stock scheme related to the company "Spongetech".

The article states, "U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry ruled on May 17 that prosecutors could not use any computer files or emails seized from defendant Michael Metter. She made the sanction because prosecutors had let more than 15 months go by without meaningful progress in determining which of those files fell outside the scope of a 2010 search warrant.

It was the first time a judge in the 2nd U.S. Circuit, which includes New York, has addressed the question of whether the government faces any hard-and-fast deadlines for performing privilege reviews on vast amounts of computer data swept up in the course of investigations, according to the ruling."

The article notes there is not set time limit for completion of the review of electronically stored information, although case law has held such reviews need to take place in a "reasonable" amount of time.

The article further states, "Irizarry's ruling may have ripple effects through other criminal investigations, experts said, particularly in white-collar and corporate cases where prosecutors often scoop up computer files wholesale, then turn later to the task of sorting out relevant files.

Reviewing so much information can be a lengthy process, said Christopher Hall, a white-collar defense attorney at Saul Ewing in Philadelphia and a former federal prosecutor. On the other hand, just as the government is forbidden from sweeping up and keeping the entire contents of a defendant's apartment, it is forbidden from keeping copies of emails that have nothing to do with the warrant -- personal information, or anything protected by attorney-client privilege.

"Judge Irizarry has created an outer limit of time in which the government has to act to review for pertinence," Hall said. "It is, in effect, now a common-law requirement that the government review for relevance within a reasonable period of time.""

The article further mentions, "Citing the government's "lack of good faith" and "blatant disregard for its responsibility," Irizarry ordered all evidence seized from the hard drives and email account to be suppressed wholesale -- a strong sanction that could affect the government's case at Metter's upcoming trial."