United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing (PDF)

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT RULING ON 2003 SURVEY TESTING RESULTS SEIZED AS PART OF THE BALCO INVESTIGATION

Dec. 27, 2006
Format - PDF (120 pages)

OPINION

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

We must decide whether the United States may retain evidence it seized from Major League Baseball’s drug testing administrator (and enforce an additional subpoena) as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into illegal steroid use by professional athletes.

I

These three consolidated cases arise from the federal investigation of the Bay Area Lab Cooperative (“Balco”) and its alleged distribution of illegal steroids to professional baseball athletes. The investigation began in August 2002 and, over the following several years, produced evidence—including grand jury  testimony—establishing probable cause to believe that at least ten major league baseball players received illegal steroids from Balco. Today we decide the government’s appeals from the separate adverse orders of three different district courts: (1) an order by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in the Central District of California, requiring the government to return property seized from Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. in Long Beach, Californi  (“CDT”),¹ (2) an order by Judge James Mahan in the District of Nevada, requiring the government to return property seized from Quest Diagnostics, Inc. in Las Vegas, Nevada (“Quest”),² and (3) an order by Judge Susan Illston in the Northern District of California, quashing the government’s May 6, 2004, subpoenas to CDT and Quest that related to the grand jury sitting in San Francisco, California.

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