United States v. Ali Shaygan ( 2012 )

[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
APRIL 2, 2012
JOHN LEY
No. 09-12129
CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 08-20112-CR-ASG
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
ANDREA G. HOFFMAN,
SEAN PAUL CRONIN,
Interested-Parties-Appellants,
versus
ALI SHAYGAN,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(April 2, 2012)
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, EDMONDSON, CARNES,
BARKETT, HULL, MARCUS, WILSON, PRYOR, and MARTIN, Circuit
Judges.*
BY THE COURT:
The court having been polled at the request of one of the members of the
Court and a majority of the Circuit Judges who are in regular active service not
having voted in favor of it (Rule 35, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure), the
Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc and the Petition for Rehearing are DENIED.
/s/ JOEL F. DUBINA
CHIEF JUDGE
*
Judge Adalberto Jordan did not participate in the en banc poll.
2
MARTIN, Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, in which
BARKETT, Circuit Judge, joins:
Prosecutors perform a vital and laudatory role for our society. To help them
carry out this role, we give them enormous power. This, even to such an extent
that they have authority to decide whether our government will seek to take the
life of a given criminal defendant. Our federal prosecutors are taught—and often
reminded—that the “interest” of the United States “in a criminal prosecution is not
that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Strickler v. Greene, 527
U.S. 263, 281, 119 S. Ct. 1936, 1948 (1999) (quotation marks omitted). My
observation is that prosecutors almost always do their job so as to bring honor to
the remarkable criminal justice system that is ours. At the same time, our system
of government is one of checks and balances, and no public official was intended
to have power without end.
In 1997, Congress enacted just such a check on prosecutors in a statute
commonly referred to as the Hyde Amendment. The legislation was widely
understood to be Congress’s response to the prosecution of former Congressman
Joseph McDade, who had served seventeen terms in Congress. After a lengthy
federal investigation and trial, a jury acquitted Mr. McDade. During the
development of that legislation, Congressman Henry Hyde, then Chairman of the
3
House Judiciary Committee, referred to “someone we all know who went through
hell, if I may use the term, for many years of being accused and finally prevailed at
enormous expense, one he will never get out from under.” 143 Cong. Rec.
H7786-04, at H7791 (daily ed. Sept. 24, 1997) (statement of Rep. Henry Hyde,
Chairman, H. Comm. on Judiciary). In that same discussion, Congressman Hyde
described the concerns motivating the law which bears his name:
What if Uncle Sam sues you, charges you with a criminal violation, even
gets an indictment and proceeds, but they are wrong. They are not just
wrong, they are willfully wrong, they are frivolously wrong. They keep
information from you that the law says they must disclose. They hide
information. They do not disclose exculpatory information to which you
are entitled. They suborn perjury.
Id. As it was ultimately passed, the Hyde Amendment permits federal courts to
award reasonable attorneys fees to criminal defendants who are acquitted if “the
position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.” Pub. L.
No. 105-119, § 617, 111 Stat. 2440, 2519 (1997) (reprinted in 18 U.S.C. § 3006A,
historical and statutory notes). Thus, we in the judicial branch were given our own
role to play in this system of checks and balances to protect against prosecutorial
misconduct.
The trial judge in this case performed his assigned role with great care. U.S.
District Judge Alan S. Gold’s comprehensive fifty-page Order awarding Hyde
4
Amendment attorneys fees to Dr. Ali Shaygan was “crowded with thorough
findings of fact” detailing government misconduct that took place in his
prosecution. United States v. Shaygan, 652 F.3d 1297, 1321 (11th Cir. 2011)
(Edmondson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Judge Gold entered his
exhaustive Order after (1) shepherding the case through the more than fifteen
months between the time when Dr. Shaygan was indicted, until this appeal was
filed; (2) presiding over the four-week jury trial of Dr. Shaygan which culminated
in the jury acquitting the doctor of all 141 counts in the indictment, after a mere
three hours of deliberation, see United States v. Shaygan, 661 F. Supp. 2d 1289,
1291 (S.D. Fla. 2009), and (3) presiding over an extensive two-day evidentiary
hearing held after the acquittal, on Dr. Shaygan’s motion seeking relief under the
Hyde Amendment, see id.This Court’s opinion disputes none of Judge Gold’s findings of misconduct
by the prosecutors, but relieves them of all sanctions imposed, holding that
sanctions were not permitted as a matter of law. Specifically, the opinion holds
that so long as a prosecutor has a good faith basis for charging a defendant in the
first place, any prosecutorial misconduct that follows is immune from sanction
5
under the Hyde Amendment. See Shaygan, 652 F.3d at 1317.1 To get to this
result, the opinion rewrites the statute by limiting the term “the position of the
United States” to mean only the basis for bringing charges. The statute will now
be enforced in our Circuit in a way that places precisely the type of prosecutorial
misconduct Congressman Hyde highlighted as motivating passage of the Hyde
Amendment beyond its scope. This Court’s opinion also strips our federal trial
judges of a rarely needed, but critical tool for deterring and punishing
prosecutorial misconduct. And the prosecutorial misconduct that happened in Dr.
Shaygan’s case deserved punishment.
I.
Dr. Shaygan was a medical doctor practicing in Miami. Prosecutors from
the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida sought, and the
Grand Jury returned, a twenty-three count indictment charging Dr. Shaygan with
distributing controlled substances outside the scope of professional practice and
not for a legitimate medical purpose, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).
Shaygan, 661 F. Supp. 2d at 1293. The indictment also charged that Dr.
1
The opinion does devise a single exception to this rule. Where a prosecutor uses a
constitutionally impermissible factor—such as race or religion—in deciding to bring charges, the
opinion permits Hyde Amendment sanctions even if the charges are supported by probable cause.
See Shaygan, 652 F.3d at 1312–13. I find the basis for this lone exception nowhere in either the text
of the Hyde Amendment or the statute’s legislative history.
6
Shaygan’s improper prescribing practices resulted in the death of one of his
patients. Id. Judge Gold found that the bringing of the original indictment was
“not frivolous or commenced in bad faith.” Id. at 1321. However, the prosecution
of Dr. Shaygan ran into problems, and the prosecutors responded with tough
tactics that deteriorated into disobeying Court Orders, hiding evidence, and
shirking the longstanding obligations imposed upon federal prosecutors by Brady
v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194 (1963), Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S.
150, 92 S. Ct. 763 (1972), and the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500.
Early on in his prosecution, Dr. Shaygan refused to withdraw his ultimately
successful motion to suppress certain statements taken from him by investigators
in violation of his Miranda rights. The prosecutors responded by taking their case
against Dr. Shaygan back to the Grand Jury, to get a Superseding Indictment
which added, by my count, 118 counts to the original charges. Shaygan, 661 F.
Supp. 2d at 1298. This is the path by which the jury was ultimately presented with
a 141-count indictment against Dr. Shaygan. As I have said, the jury quickly
acquitted him of every count.
Judge Gold’s Order tells of how it came to pass that prosecutors enlisted
two of their most important witnesses, Carlos Vento and Trinity Clendening
(former patients of Dr. Shaygan), to secretly record conversations with Dr.
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Shaygan’s lawyers and their investigator. The lead prosecutor promoted these
surreptitious recordings based on a report he got from his own investigator, an
agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The DEA agent reported that a
third prosecution witness, another patient named Courtney Tucker, was “going
south” and “showing signs of reluctance” about testifying against Dr. Shaygan.
Id. at 1301. The DEA agent advised that Ms. Tucker was wary of cooperating
with the government in Dr. Shaygan’s case, because she feared the government
would portray her as a drug addict during her testimony at Dr. Shaygan’s trial and
might even prosecute her in the future. See id. at 1300. Based on this report, the
lead prosecutor concluded that Dr. Shaygan’s lawyers were behind Ms. Tucker’s
reluctance to testify and were engaging in “witness tampering.” See id. at 1302.
He instituted the secret recordings to investigate. Id.2
Among the problems with this premise for the surreptitious recording of the
defense team is that the defense team never did say these things to Ms. Tucker,
2
This was not the first allegation of witness tampering made by these very prosecutors
related to Dr. Shaygan’s defense team. These same two prosecutors earlier brought a case against
Evelio Cervantes Conde, which resulted in Mr. Conde being acquitted. See United States v. Conde,
No. 07-cr-20973 (S.D. Fla. July 18, 2008) (entering judgment of acquittal). Mr. Conde was
represented by Mark Seitles, who later became one of Dr. Shaygan’s lawyers. After the Conde
acquittal, the two prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Mr. Conde, charging him with
witness tampering. Shaygan, 661 F. Supp. 2d at 1293. Mr. Seitles contested the charge with
supervisors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the witness tampering case against Mr. Conde was
dropped without an indictment. Id.8
and neither did Ms. Tucker ever tell the DEA agent that they had. See id. at 1299.
On this point, Judge Gold heard testimony from all involved, and made a finding
that Ms. Tucker did not tell the DEA agent that anyone from the defense team had
ever warned her that she would be subject to federal prosecution or that the
government would attempt to portray her as a drug addict. Id. Judge Gold
credited Ms. Tucker’s testimony that the defense team never tried to intimidate
her. Id. Indeed, the evidence indicated that it was the government that fabricated
Ms. Tucker’s purported bad statements about Dr. Shaygan when it included things
Ms. Tucker did not say in the DEA-6 report (DEA-6). See id. at 1298.
Once the ball got rolling on this baseless “witness tampering” investigation,
the detour from the path to justice veered further. The government identified Mr.
Vento and Mr. Clendening to the defense team as merely former Shaygan patients
who would serve as neutral witnesses to the facts of the case. In truth, the lead
prosecutor directed that Mr. Vento and Mr. Clendening be enlisted to record any
conversations they might have with Dr. Shaygan’s defense team, see id. at 1304,
and Mr. Vento was provided with a recording device for that purpose, id. at 1305.
Within a few days, Mr. Vento secretly recorded a conversation with Michael
Graff, who was the investigator working for Dr. Shaygan’s lawyers. Id. Later, at
the government’s request, but using his own equipment, Mr. Clendening secretly
9
recorded his conversation with David Markus—one of Dr. Shaygan’s lawyers.
See id. at 1308. These recordings were kept secret from the defense team and the
District Court.
The prosecutors violated direct Orders of the Court. Judge Gold ordered the
government to give him all DEA-6s so that he could review them, in camera,
before the trial began. See id. at 1300–01. Even so, the prosecutors did not turn
over the DEA-6 which reported that Mr. Vento had recorded his conversation with
Mr. Graff and also documented the DEA agent’s interview of Ms. Tucker. See id.
at 1306. Neither did the government provide any DEA-6 which reported that Mr.
Clendening had recorded his conversation with Mr. Markus. See id. at 1310(noting the prosecutor “did not disclose that he knew Clendening, who testified for
the Government after Vento, was working with [the DEA agent] and that he had
agreed to make recordings”). Also not produced was the “crucial DEA-6”
reflecting that Mr. Vento had entered into a confidential informant agreement with
the government on January 16, 2009. Id. at 1309.3 As Judge Gold noted, if these
DEA-6 reports had been produced to him as he had ordered, Dr. Shaygan and the
3
Dr. Shaygan’s trial began on February 17, 2009. The fact of Mr. Vento’s January 16, 2009
confidential informant agreement with the government was not written in the form of a DEA-6 until
March 3, 2009, which was during the trial, and after the defense had already learned about Mr.
Vento’s recording of Mr. Graff. See Shaygan, 661 F. Supp. 2d at 1309.
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Court would have known about the recording of the defense team, and that Mr.
Vento and Mr. Clendening were serving as DEA informants, instead of appearing
as neutral witnesses. See id. at 1317.
Beyond these violations of the Court’s Orders, the prosecutors also violated
their duties under Brady, Giglio and the Jencks Act.4 For example, the prosecutors
knew of information given by Dr. Shaygan’s patients that was favorable to him,
but withheld it. See id. at 1317–18. This was important because it went directly
to the prosecution’s theory that Dr. Shaygan was not a legitimate doctor. See id. at
1318. Giglio was violated, for example, when the prosecution never disclosed to
Dr. Shaygan that it had contacted a Florida prosecutor on behalf of Mr.
Clendening—who was facing felony drug charges in Florida state court—to
communicate that Mr. Clendening had been assisting the federal government in its
efforts to prosecute Dr. Shaygan. See id. at 1309. The government violated the
4
Judge Gold’s fifty-page Order makes so many findings that it is not practical to set them
all out here. Beyond what is set out in the main text of this dissent, Judge Gold delineated his
findings of (1) instances in which the prosecutors offered live testimony which varied from their own
written affidavits previously given to the Court, see Shaygan, 661 F. Supp. 2d at 1302, 1306; (2)
instances in which various members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and law enforcement agents gave
differing accounts of the same events, see id. at 1302; (3) policies of the U.S. Attorney’s Office
regarding investigations of opposing counsel being violated, see id. at 1303–04; and (4) members
of the U.S. Attorney’s Office “casually” discussing with a group of people at dinner, the fact that
while he was testifying during Dr. Shaygan’s trial, Mr. Clendening blurted out that he had recorded
his conversation with Dr. Shaygan’s lawyer, when no member of the prosecution had ever disclosed
the existence of these recordings to the Court, see id. at 1312–13.
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Jencks Act, when it possessed recorded statements of Mr. Vento and Mr.
Clendening speaking to members of the Shaygan defense team, but did not turn
over those statements in connection with Vento and Clendening’s testimony at
trial. See id. at 1319–20. All this the government failed to do even in the face of
specific defense requests for Brady, Giglio and Jencks material, and a standing
Court Order to produce it.
II.
As with the factual inquiry, Judge Gold diligently undertook the
responsibility imposed on him by the Hyde Amendment to determine whether this
misconduct by the government amounted to a position that was vexatious,
frivolous or in bad faith. As I have said, he made findings after hearing oral
testimony and receiving written affidavits from all involved. He found generally
that the two Shaygan prosecutors “exhibited a pattern of ‘win-at-all-cost’ behavior
. . . that was contrary to their ethical obligations as prosecutors and a breach of
their ‘heavy obligation to the accused.’” Id. at 1315. Judge Gold’s finding in this
regard was supported by countless evidentiary details which cannot all be restated
here. I will only briefly summarize.
Among Judge Gold’s specific findings of bad faith was his finding that the
lead prosecutor undertook the surreptitious recordings in the so-called witness
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tampering investigation “for the bad faith purpose of seeking to disqualify the
defense lawyers for conflict-of-interest immediately prior to trial.” Id. at 1310.
Judge Gold found that the lead prosecutor knew that if key defense lawyers for Dr.
Shaygan could be disqualified just before the trial, they would have to step down
immediately. See id. at 1311. That “catastrophic” blow, it was hoped, would
“force” Dr. Shaygan to plead guilty. Id.Judge Gold also undertook an extensive discussion of how the lead
prosecutor failed to follow either the policies of his U.S. Attorney’s Office or the
specific instruction given him to remove himself from the investigation he had
initiated against opposing counsel. Noting how the strict “taint wall” between the
Shaygan prosecution and the investigation of Dr. Shaygan’s defense team had
been repeatedly breached for “tactical” purposes, id. at 1311, Judge Gold found
that the lead prosecutor acted with “implicit bias and in bad faith” in this regard as
well. Id. at 1302.
Judge Gold drew a “strong inference[]” that the Superseding Indictment
adding 118 counts to the twenty-three counts of the original indictment was
“significantly motived by ill-will.” Id. at 1298. Judge Gold found that the
addition of so many charges was designed to compel a guilty plea from Dr.
Shaygan by “greatly increas[ing] the time and cost of the trial” and by delaying the
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trial so as to prolong the “strict conditions of house arrest” which were exacting a
heavy psychological toll on Dr. Shaygan. Id.Finally, Judge Gold found that the prosecution’s failure to turn over the
DEA-6 documenting that Mr. Vento had recorded the defense team was “knowing
and in bad faith.” Id. at 1306. He found that the prosecution’s failure to turn over
the DEA-6 report of the interview of Ms. Tucker was “willful, vexatious and in
bad faith.” Id. at 1301. These actions and many others, Judge Gold concluded,
were “conscious and deliberate wrongs” arising from “the prosecutors’ moral
obliquity.” Id. at 1321. And far from isolated wrongs, he emphasized, they fit
into a “pattern” of desperate conduct designed to save a case that had become
weak from getting even weaker. See id. at 1315, 1322.
III.
As I have said, this Court’s opinion in Shaygan does not dispute that the
prosecutors did or said everything that Judge Gold found to be true. Neither does
it contest Judge Gold’s findings that the prosecutors acted in violation of their
ethical obligations as representatives of our government. Rather, the opinion
assumes that the only factor that reflects the position of the government (other
than the narrow exception I have mentioned) is the basis for the charges against
the defendant. See Shaygan, 652 F.3d at 1311–16. This astoundingly narrow
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reading of the term “the position of the United States” collapses the Hyde
Amendment inquiry into only a single question: were the charges against the
defendant baseless? See id. at 1311–13. If the answer to that question is no, then
“the prosecution is objectively reasonable,” and the Hyde Amendment inquiry
comes to an abrupt halt. Id. at 1317.
Applying this test, the opinion concludes that solely because probable cause
supported the charges in the Superseding Indictment, the prosecution of Dr.
Shaygan was “objectively reasonable” and therefore not in bad faith. See id. at
1313, 1315–16. This approach makes all of the prosecutorial misconduct found by
Judge Gold irrelevant. And by this route, the opinion reaches the remarkable
holding that the District Court had “no discretion to award Shaygan attorney’s fees
and costs.” Id. at 1317 (emphasis added). Yet, this holding contradicts what
Congress said when it passed the Hyde Amendment and renders the statute
incapable of doing what Congress intended. As a result, and not surprisingly, it
marks an unwarranted departure from the decisions of our sister Circuits and from
Supreme Court precedent.
In passing the Hyde Amendment Congress sought to respond to a wide
range of prosecutorial misconduct, including instances where prosecutors “keep
information from [the defendant] that the law says they must disclose,” “hide
15
information” and “suborn perjury.” 143 Cong. Rec. H7786-04, at H7791 (daily
ed. Sept. 24, 1997) (statement of Rep. Hyde). Thus, it seems Congress clearly
understood that the presence of probable cause does not, and should not, excuse
prosecutorial misconduct at later stages of a case. Indeed, the legislative history
expressly reflects that “a grand jury finding of probable cause to support an
indictment does not preclude a judge from [awarding attorney’s fees].” H.R. Rep.
No. 105-405, at 194 (1997) (Conf. Rep.), reprinted in 1997 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2941,
3045 (emphasis added).
To capture the full range of prosecutorial misconduct, Congress adopted the
term “the position of the United States” from the Equal Access to Justice Act
(EAJA). See United States v. Gilbert, 198 F.3d 1293, 1300 (11th Cir. 1999)
(noting that Congressman Hyde “patterned his amendment after” the EAJA). The
EAJA provides for attorneys fees to litigants who prevail against the United States
in civil cases where the government’s position is not “substantially justified.” See
28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A). By the time Congress was considering Congressman
Hyde’s proposal, and in the context of awarding attorneys fees against the
government, the term “the position of the United States” had acquired a specific
meaning. In Commissioner, INS v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 110 S. Ct. 2316 (1990),
16
the Supreme Court held that the term requires a court to consider “a case as an
inclusive whole.” Id. at 161–62, 110 S. Ct. at 2320.
Based on this expansive interpretation of the term “position,” the First
Circuit has recognized that, under the Hyde Amendment, an award may properly
be based on “an array of government conduct both before the indictment and
during litigation.” United States v. Knott, 256 F.3d 20, 31 (1st Cir. 2001). In the
same way, the Sixth Circuit has observed that under the Hyde Amendment,
“[w]hen assessing whether the position of the United States was vexatious,
frivolous, or in bad faith, the district court should [evaluate] the case as an
inclusive whole.” United States v. Heavrin, 330 F.3d 723, 730 (6th Cir. 2003)
(quotation marks omitted). Rejecting the idea that the Hyde Amendment
contemplates “a precise litmus test,” the Sixth Circuit cautioned that courts “must
not fail to see the forest for the trees.” Id.Decisions from other Circuits also reflect that the term “position” requires a
court to examine “a case as an inclusive whole,” Jean, 496 U.S. at 161–62, 110 S.
Ct. at 2320. See, e.g., United States v. Porchay, 533 F.3d 704, 707–08, 711 (8th
Cir. 2008) (examining whether government conduct following the dismissal of the
indictment was in bad faith); United States v. Manchester Farming P’ship, 315
F.3d 1176, 1185–86 & n.25 (9th Cir. 2003) (examining whether government
17
conduct both after the indictment was filed and during trial demonstrated bad
faith).
This Circuit stands alone in its now established rule that in order to discern
“the position of the United States,” a court need only examine the basis for the
charges. See Shaygan, 652 F.3d at 1312–16. I find great irony in that, under our
rule, the type of misconduct Congressman Hyde specifically decried in urging his
colleagues to adopt his amendment is now beyond the scope of the law. This new
and myopic view of what constitutes “the position of the United States” under the
Hyde Amendment leads to a particularly shocking result in this case. For me this
is most plainly manifested in the Court’s conclusion that these prosecutors’
conduct—only some of which I have described here—was “objectively
reasonable.” Id. at 1317.
IV.
In closing, I must say that I realize there are few less popular classes of
people for whom to advocate than those charged with federal crimes. One might
say that a person, like Dr. Shaygan, who has been acquitted has nothing to
complain about. But Congress thought differently. The rules that govern our
criminal justice system have developed over the life of our country to allow those
accused of crimes to know the evidence against them; to be advised of the
18
weaknesses in that evidence; and to be able to confront the witnesses against them
with full knowledge of information which might color their testimony. Just like
the rest of us, Dr. Shaygan was constitutionally entitled to all of this as he faced
the serious charges leveled against him. The government violated Dr. Shaygan’s
rights, and now, contrary to what Congress has provided, he is left alone to pay the
costs he suffered at the hands of these rule breakers.
It also strikes me as dangerous to render trial judges mere spectators of
extreme government misconduct. By enacting the Hyde Amendment, Congress
gave trial judges the responsibility to determine whether “the position of the
United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.” I say Judge Gold
performed that unpleasant duty admirably, and he had every reason in law to
expect that his Order would be affirmed. Indeed, this Court has said “prosecutors
must expect that this court will support district judges who take reasonable steps
to correct prosecutorial conduct that is not right.” United States v. Wilson, 149
F.3d 1298, 1304 (11th Cir. 1998). This Court’s decision not to reconsider this
case en banc forsakes that principle. I respectfully dissent.
19