EFTA00206371¶
| From: | Paul Cassell [mailto: |
| Sent: | Tuesday, March 15, 2011 7:21 PM |
| To: | (USAFLS) |
| Cc: | (USAFLS); Brad Edwards |
| Subject: | RE: Government's Position on Several Pending Issues? Still Waiting for Answer |
Dear¶
Brad and I have received Mr. letter of today. We are deeply disappointed. We will file our court pleadings on Friday.¶
Mr. letter still leaves unanswered a number of questions, which I am writing to raise with you - again.¶
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You still have not provided, as you promised you would, the name of the person coordinating the OPR investigation. As a result we have not been able to obtain any information about the status of the investigation. Just to be clear, we intend to include in our filing information that OPR has begun an investigation and to include the information that we currently have about – we assume that making that information public will not compromise OPR’s work.
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We will be making initial disclosures to you under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure shortly. We have not heard back from you on whether you will be making parallel disclosures. Accordingly, we understand your position to be that you are not obligated to provide to us any documents under Rule 26.
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We understand your position to be that, despite the “best efforts” clause in the CVRA and your obligation to treat victims with fairness, you can withhold evidence from the victims that will help them prove CVRA violations. For example, we understand you to take the position that you can withhold the other half of the U.S. Attorney’s correspondence, correspondence between the Department and Ken Starr and Lillian on behalf of Epstein, and information about role in the Epstein case. In short, we understand you to be asserting a blanket position that you can withhold information that will help prove the victims’ CVRA case. If this is incorrect, please advise us promptly. If we have misunderstood you and you are willing to provide us relevant information, we will promptly provide you with a list of such information. If we have understood you correctly, we will be filing a motion with the Court shortly to block the Justice Department from suppressing such highly relevant information.
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You still have not given us your position on the victims’ motion to file an unsealed, unredacted pleading reciting the U.S. Attorney’s correspondence. What is your position on that motion: We have been asking for your position on this motion for some time now. If we have not heard back from you by c.o.b. Wednesday, March 16, 2011, we will include in our pleadings the following statement: “The Justice Department attorneys handling this case have been contacted several times for their position on this issue but have refused to respond to give their position.”
EFTA00206372¶
Thanks you in advance for your assistance. Sincerely, Paul Cassell, Co-Counsel for Jane Doe¶
Paul G. Cassell¶
Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law¶
S. J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah¶
http://www.law.utah.edu/profiles/default.asp?PersonID=57&name=Cassell,Paul¶
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Hi – I think that some of these positions may conflict with other positions taken by the Department. In particular I believe that the Department’s position is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply because this is not a civil action.¶
As to point number 4, I would recommend that we make clear that the matter should be filed under seal in accordance with Judge Marra’s order, however, if the plaintiffs abide by the terms of that order (in terms of providing notice and the opportunity to be heard) and make a motion to unseal, we will not oppose the motion to unseal.¶