Opinion
CR-21-02714-001-TUC-RM (MSA)
10-06-2023
United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Devonte Okeith Mathis, Defendant.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
HONORABLE MARIA S. AGUILERA, UNITED S TATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
Pending before the Court is the Government's motion to preclude the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office from releasing certain documents. For the following reasons, the Court will recommend that the motion be denied.
The current restraint period expires on October 14, 2023. The parties are free to seek an extension of that deadline from the district court while it considers this recommendation.
I. Background
On October 4, 2021, federal agents conducted routine interdiction operations on an Amtrak train that had stopped in Tucson. After they found marijuana in a bag belonging to Defendant Devonte Mathis, they boarded the train to speak with Defendant's traveling companion, D.T. D.T. shot three agents, one fatally, and then was killed in a shootout. Defendant was arrested and later charged with felony drug offenses.
In November 2021, the Government moved for an precluding the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office, which performed the autopsies on the agent and D.T., from releasing the autopsy reports and related documents to the media. (Doc. 15.) In support, the Government cited, among other things, possible harm to the ongoing investigation and possible contamination of the jury pool. The motion, which was unopposed, was granted, and the Medical Examiner's Office was precluded from releasing the documents for a sixmonth period. (Doc. 16.) Over the pendency of this case, the Government moved three times to extend the restraint period, again based in part on concerns about the investigation and jury pool. (Docs. 32, 42, 64.) Those motions, which were also unopposed, were granted. (Docs. 33, 43, 65.) The last extension expires on October 14, 2023.
In March 2023, Defendant pleaded guilty. (Docs. 60, 61, 62.) In June, he was sentenced, and judgment was entered. (Docs. 73, 76.) Under his plea agreement, he is barred from appealing or collaterally attacking his convictions and sentences (except under narrow circumstances). (Doc. 61 at 8; Doc. 76 at 5.) Thus, this case has ended.
On October 3, the Government filed its fourth motion to extend the restraint period, this time for the “indefinite future.” (Doc. 83.) This is appropriate, the Government says, because of the “interests of the decedents' and their families' privacy” and because of “the lack of any competing or countervailing interests in the disclosure of these highly sensitive materials.” This motion is also unopposed.
II. Discussion
In granting the Government's initial motion, the Court explained that it was not bound to Arizona's public records law, which creates a “presumption favoring disclosure” of public records. Schoeneweis v. Hamner, 221 P.3d 48, 51 (Ariz.Ct.App. 2009) (quoting Griffis v. Pinal County, 156 P.3d 418, 422 (Ariz. 2007)). The Court further explained that the autopsy reports and related documents were not “judicial records” to which the public had a presumptive right of access. See Nixon v. Warner Commc'ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597-98 (1978) (describing the right of access). Still, the Court found it important that there was an ongoing criminal investigation, and that the deaths of the agent and D.T. were not directly relevant to Defendant's drug charges. See Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462 (1907) (“The theory of our system is that the conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print.”). The Court found that those concerns, in combination with the decedents' privacy interests, supported granting the Government's motion.
The Court finds that the present motion, however, should be denied. Because a permanent restraint is a much weightier request, it follows that the Government must support it with more compelling reasoning. The Government fails to do so. Furthermore, most of the reasoning underlying the prior temporary restraints has disappeared. The Court's case-related concerns are now gone, as Defendant has pleaded guilty, been sentenced, and is largely precluded from challenging his convictions and sentences.
That leaves only the privacy interests. Those undoubtedly are important, but they are not the subject matter of this case. This is a criminal case involving Devonte Mathis. The Court's goal in issuing the prior restraints was to ensure that he received a fair proceeding, and he has. Therefore, the autopsy reports and related documents, and the decedents' interests in keeping them private, are now beyond the scope of this action. There is no further role for the Court to play in the matter.
III. Conclusion
The Court recommends that the Government's motion to preclude the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office from releasing certain documents (Doc. 83) be denied.
This recommendation is not immediately appealable to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The parties have 14 days to file specific written objections with the district court. Fed. R. Crim. P. 59(b)(2). The parties have 14 days to respond to objections. The parties may not file replies to objections absent the district court's permission. The failure to file timely objections may result in the waiver of de novo review. United States v. Reyna-Tapia, 328 F.3d 1114, 1121 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc).