Judge Tells FBI To Stop Screwing Around And Search For Documents Requested By Man Seeking To Clear His Name

from the 23-years-later,-apparently-still-a-threat-to-drug-warring dept

In 1991, Adolfo Correa Coss was convicted of drug trafficking, but has steadfastly maintained his innocence. While working towards clearing his name, he discovered an FBI informant named Guillermo Casas had a hand in his arrest and indictment. He also discovered that Casas kept detailed notebooks containing records of his drug purchases and sales.

In 1989, he was arrested for possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. The search of his home, car, and business “was based on [the allegations of] a confidential . . . police informant” who claimed to have made three separate purchases of cocaine from Coss on May 8, 1989. At trial and during his subsequent appeal, Coss alleged that the informant – who he even then believed was Casas – had fabricated his story; as a result, Coss maintained, the police officer’s search-warrant application contained false statements and was thus invalid. These arguments did not succeed, and Coss’s conviction was affirmed.
In early 2013, Coss filed FOIA requests with the FBI and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) for these notebooks, in hopes of obtaining exonerating information. Instead, he spent the next several months being told less than nothing by both agencies, which rebuffed him with Glomar responses, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of the notebooks.

After multiple, increasingly narrow FOIA requests were submitted by Coss in hopes of evading the Glomar blockade, the EOUSA finally told him that it had found nine boxes which could possibly contain the requested notebooks, but that Coss would need to pay up front for the costs involved in searching them. Coss sent the DOJ a check for the amount requested. The agency processed it on May 23, 2014… and then did nothing. Coss filed his lawsuit on July 13, 2014. Over two months later, the DOJ finally informed Coss that the notebooks he sought weren't in the boxes.

The FBI, on the other hand, continues to cling to its Glomar -- even in the face of Coss' lawsuit -- claiming it isn't done dicking him around he hasn't "exhausted his administrative remedies." The court dismisses Coss' claims against the EOUSA/DOJ, stating that the agencies made a "good faith effort" to locate the documents. But his claims against the FBI will be allowed to stand. The court tackles each of the FBI's weak counterclaims from its motion for dismissal.
There is no dispute that “[a] FOIA requester is generally required to exhaust administrative appeal remedies before seeking judicial redress.” The difficulty here is locating an FBI decision from which Coss should have appealed. As set forth in Section I, supra, the FBI’s July 30, 2013, Glomar response offered Plaintiff several avenues through which he might overcome the Bureau’s position: have the third party sign an authorization form, prove the third party’s death, or demonstrate that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the third party’s privacy interests. Apparently picking door number three, Coss responded with his August 16 letter, stating, “The public interest in ensuring that no innocent person is convicted of a crime far outweighs any privacy interest in withholding the information.”

As the FBI never responded thereafter, it seems disingenuous for the Bureau to now adopt a failure-to-appeal position. In other words, Plaintiff followed the instructions of the July 30 letter, and even though his justification was rather scant, the Bureau would still have needed to reject it in order for Coss to know he should then pursue an appeal. Its radio silence left him in FOIA limbo. In such an instance, the law makes clear that exhaustion is not a proper defense: “[I]f an agency fails to make and communicate its ‘determination’ whether to comply with a FOIA request within certain statutory timelines [20 working days here], the requester ‘shall be deemed to have exhausted his administrative remedies.’” The Bureau, consequently, may not rely on exhaustion here.
The FBI's Glomar response similarly receives no love.
In this case, the FBI contends that the “disclosure of any information would tend to identify a third-party individual, and the FBI discerned no public interest in disclosure of this information and found that privacy interests were paramount.” Yet this is a mere parroting of the standard without any clear thought about what is actually sought here. All Coss demands in this suit are the notebooks in which Casas detailed his drug transactions. Their existence is not secret; indeed, it is printed for all to see in the pages of the federal reporter. As the Seventh Circuit explained, “From above a trapdoor in Casas’ bedroom closet, DEA agents recovered . . . some notebooks . . . . [which] contained records and tabulations of multiple multikilogram cocaine transactions.”

As Coss simply seeks the notebooks that were admitted in Casas’s and his co-defendants’ trial, this is not a case in which Plaintiff is endeavoring to unmask the identity of an informant or to compromise anyone’s security. He has made clear on multiple occasions, furthermore, that all personally identifying material that does not refer to him may be redacted. Refusing to acknowledge whether or not the notebooks exist borders on foolishness.
As the ruling closes out, the judge sends one final shot across the FBI's obfuscatory bow:
The FBI notes that, as a courtesy once the suit was filed, it searched its Central Records System using Coss’s name and located no material. This could well be relevant had Plaintiff’s request been for FBI records pertaining to himself. Given that he sought only the Casas notebooks, it is unsurprising that these documents were not uncovered in such a search. While these efforts by the Bureau deserve commendation, they are no substitute for a targeted search for the actual notebooks.
It's refreshing to see a government agency's Glomar get shot down by a judge. The problem is that the supposed "administrative remedies" available to FOIA requesters rarely remedy anything. For far too many FOIA requesters, the FOIA lawsuit is the only remedy that seems to produce any results.

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Filed Under: adolfo correa coss, fbi, foia, guillermo casas


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Apr 2015 @ 3:07pm

    the judge here is typical, in my opinion, in the way so called 'justice' has turned in the USA, ie, there isn't any. what we have more than anything are security forces in the guise of law enforcement agencies doing absolutely fuck all except, in cases like these, putting whatever lies and bullshit comments out! these are followed by judges who do the worse thing possible and allow these agencies etc get away with the lies and bullshit! how the hell can the judge say there has been 'good faith' searches for evidence? was he there? of course not! would the agents and officers lie? of course they would! the reason being they dont want to be shown to have fabricated some evidence and ignored some other, just so as to get a conviction. the fact that this person has been locked up for years, possibly innocent of any crime, doesn't actually affect any of the security people, they are not the ones locked up! this treatment is deplorable! but it wont ever change as long as officers are allowed to conduct evidence gathering in a manner that does not become them and judges allow it to keep on happening. as i just said, it doesn't matter to the court or the officers, but it does to the imprisoned person, and it would to one of those on the convicting side if they were suddenly put in jail for doing nothing. what a different tale we would hear then!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      orbitalinsertion (profile), 23 Apr 2015 @ 3:49pm

      Re:

      Seems more like the judge told the FBI they were bullshitting and allowed the suit to stand. (Even though the other suits were dismissed, and whether incompetence or bad faith caused the delays, the EO and DOJ had eventually complied by the time the filings for summary judgement were made.)

      Of course, all he can hope to do is to invalidate the search, which is just one more tick mark against the LEOs involved and won't change anything on their end. It doesn't make the man innocent, who apparently had sale-amounts of coke in his possession (valid searches or no). The law doesn't just run roughshod over the innocent, but the clearly guilty as well.

      This is about the gov screwing around with FOIA requests, not guilt or innocence. Coss can only have conviction overturned on a technicality, unless he can also prove that the evidence recovered from 3 locations was also planted. IOW, he's innocent like OJ.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), 23 Apr 2015 @ 3:07pm

    Idiots

    The FBI has too many idiots on staff that object to being called what they are - corrupt, ass-covering, schmucks! Time for early retirement!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 23 Apr 2015 @ 4:43pm

    Next action

    Anyone want to bet whether the next excuse is a natural (flood, tornado, hurricane) or an unnatural (whoops, some idiot dropped the box into the shredder that leads to the nightly burn bag and we didn't notice until a week later) disaster?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    k-h, 23 Apr 2015 @ 10:06pm

    If the notebooks don't exist then maybe ...

    the case against him was not based on any evidence and should be declared void.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Padpaw (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 12:24am

    so what do citizens do when they discover the laws they follow only apply to those enforcing them 9 times out of ten. Do they ignore this banana republic system and keep going about their every day lives or start ignoring the laws since they notice it doesn't apply to the government or police why should it apply to me

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anony, 24 Apr 2015 @ 12:51am

    Case overturned ???

    Surely if the FBI has something to hide they are then guilty of false accuswations and need to be either punished or those responsible removed from any position where they have any say of any other human being.

    One of the biggest crimes of our times is the DOJ and others using underhanded tactics to get people imprisoned, and imprisoned for crimes they have most likely not been guilty f, in fact there are many cases where prosecutors and attorneys have falsified evidence or hidden it from the defence to get a judgement.

    I don't know about others but i think i would have full support in demanding all people involved in any way with imprisoning someone with evidence they might not be guilty , those people must be imprisoned for the same time the accused is jailed for, especially when it can be shown they have ignored evidence that shows the accused could possibly be not guilty.

    yes maybe there would be some cases where prosecutors were imprisoned incorrectly but seeing that they have in no way tried to prevent innocent people from being imprisoned , well they could appeal.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 19 Jul 2015 @ 2:15pm

      Re: Case overturned ???

      DOJ does not seem to have been involved in this man's case.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 24 Apr 2015 @ 5:57pm

    I assume that each day they waste...

    Is another day this poor sod has to spend in prison. Another day in a hell-hole. Another day of sanity lost.

    Maybe we should have FBI agents and police officers spend a period of time in jail as part of their training, just so they know the shit that an innocent man goes through because they can't be bothered to give two fucks.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 26 Apr 2015 @ 6:03am

      Re: I assume that each day they waste...

      Nice idea, but wouldn't work, both because no inmate or guard would dare touch them as prospective FBI/police agents, and because they would know that all they'd have to do would be to 'tough it out' for a short period of time, very much unlike those stuck there for years or decades.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Reality bites, 28 Apr 2015 @ 9:04am

    What else could be expected from a rogue feral agency.

    The FBI hasn't been an effective agency for over 50yrs, just ignorant college educated morons with no oversight.

    The level of douchbaggery exhibited the entire agency could cleanse the worlds whale population vaginas and more.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    geral, 29 Apr 2015 @ 4:30pm

    gross abuses by fbi thugs

    The fbi is the most dangerous, murderous and sinister group of thugs in usa. My experiences:

    http://austin.indymedia.org/article/2015/04/29/fbi-psychological-operations-psyops-fbi-a gainst-me

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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