Case No. 11-CR-60147-WJZ.United States District Court, S.D. Florida.
August 29, 2011
ORDER
ROBIN ROSENBAUM, Magistrate Judge
This cause is before the Court on the Motion of Defendant Yvette Rossy Reyes for Authorization to Obtain Discovery [D.E. 73], upon referral to me by the Honorable William J. Zloch [D.E. 75]. Upon consideration of the Defendant’s Motion and after a hearing on August 29, 2011, the Court grants the Motion to the extent that Defendant’s request to obtain copies of 6,972 pages of discovery documents made available for copying at Xpediaimaging, Inc., is granted. The Defendant’s request for the Court to approve Criminal Justice Act funds pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e) for the expense of obtaining such discovery documents, however, is denied. Instead, the Government shall provide Defendant with either electronic or paper copies of the documents at issue.
As the Government explained during the course of the hearing, the discovery in this case is voluminous, involving more than 200,000 pages. The Government has identified as “highly relevant” the 6,972 documents from the larger universe of discovery that it has made available to Defendant. Although Defendant has access to the documents from the copy service where the Government left the documents, in order to obtain copies, Defendant must pay $.15 per page. Defendant, who is indigent and has counsel appointed pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act, asserted that because of the volume and anticipated importance of the designated “highly relevant” documents, it would be an undue hardship for Defendant not to have her own copy of the 6,972 pages of discovery at issue but that Defendant cannot afford to pay
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for the copying of the documents herself. Moreover, the Government conceded that it expected to rely at trial upon several of the documents in the smaller universe. This Court is aware that in criminal cases such as this one, which involve larger volumes of documents, the Government often relies on an electronic copy of the documents that it admits into evidence at trial. Consequently, it seems likely that the Government will be making an electronic copy of many, if not all, of the documents in this group of 6,972 pages of “highly relevant” documents, even in the absence of an order requiring the Government to provide Defendant with copies of these documents. Under these circumstances, the Court exercises its discretion to direct the Government to provide Defendant with either an electronic or paper copy of each of the 6,972 pages of documents at issue. See United States v. Jordan, 316 F.3d 1215, 1249 n. 72 (11th Cir. 2003) (“the district court has the discretion to require the government to provide the defendant with copies of discovery material, especially where the defendant is indigent”) (citin United States v. Freedman, 688 F.2d 1364, 1366-67 (11th Cir. 1982)).
Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED and ADJUDGED that Defendant Yvette Rossy Reyes’s Motion for Authorization to Obtain Discovery [D.E. 73] is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The Government shall provide Defendant Reyes with either an electronic or paper copy of the 6, 972 pages of “highly relevant” documents bySeptember 5, 2011.
DONE AND ORDERED at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, this Monday.