United States v. William Dennis Danielson v. United States v. William Dennis Danielson

In this hotly contested case, William Dennis Danielson was convicted of illegally selling and transporting in interstate commerce a deer taken without a state-issued tag in violation of the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 3372 (a)(2)(A) and 3372(c). Danielson appeals his conviction on the ground that the government violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

The prosecution team in this case deliberately and affirmatively took steps, while Danielson was represented by counsel, that resulted in the prosecution team’s obtaining privileged information about Dan-ielson’s trial strategy. Members of the prosecution team wrote and retained mem-oranda containing privileged trial strategy information, as well as recorded, listened to, transcribed, and retained the tapes and transcripts containing the privileged information. In addition, the Assistant United States Attorney in charge of the prosecution retained in his private office memo-randa and unredacted transcripts containing the privileged information. None of this material was produced to Danielson or his counsel during pre-trial discovery.

The government’s interference with Danielson’s attorney-client relationship was neither…