JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Prosecutors and attorneys representing Shanna Gardner battled it out in court Friday afternoon over the defense’s request to have the local State Attorney’s Office removed from alleged murder-for-hire case.
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The request centers around the state obtaining materials protected by attorney client privilege.
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Specifically, materials on Garden’s iCloud.
“In no universe should that happen,” said Gardner’s Attorney Ronald Sullivan.
The defense is asking for the local State Attorney’s Office to be disqualified from the case, or for all materials obtained from Gardner’s iCloud account to be blocked from use during trial.
Sullivan claimed when the prosecution obtained a copy of her iCloud server Garner’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated.
“The government has treated this as though the attorney client privilege is nothing more than a rule of evidence that we can sort of play fast and loose with,” said Sullivan.
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Prosecutors argued the protected materials were never reviewed, and once the materials were noticed the server data was forwarded to a taint team for filtering.
“They have made no showing that their attorney client privilege was ever violated by anybody,” said Alan Mizrahi, an attorney arguing on behalf of the State Attorney’s Office.
The state did acknowledge the materials should have been screened upfront.
“So, that was a mistake,” said Mizrahi.
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But Gardner’s attorney argued whether anyone on the prosecution team read the materials or not, a violation occurred.
“The fact that the government took passion of this information alone, that fact alone, is sufficient to attach liability one, and to sanction, to impose a sanction on the government,” said Sullivan.
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The judge scheduled a follow up hearing for May 2nd, where she will deliver a ruling on the defense’s motion.
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