For Columbia, the District Court Magistrate Judge is John M Facciola. In federal courts, magistrate judges typically make rulings on pretrial discovery matters and disputes. Discovery is the process in which parties to litigation exchange information, including electronically stored information (ESI), which is relevant to the dispute. The case?s presiding judge can evaluate and adopt the rulings passed by magistrate judges.
In the case of CREW (Citizens of Responsibility & Ethics in Washington) v Executive Office of the President, the claimant filed a lawsuit accusing the White House (during George Bush?s term) of unethical electronic data destruction. CREW?s case was an attempt to protect its right to ask that records be made available in the public domain, and was in direct reference to the Valerie Plame Wilson CIA spy scandal. The plaintiff sought an order from the court commanding the defendant to safeguard any back-ups of the electronic data. Magistrate Judge presiding over the case, Judge Facciola, instructed the defendant and its employees to safeguard and save all electronic data backs ups and any information created through the particular time span.
In United States v O'Keefe, a criminal case concerning bribes, the defendant filed pretrial objections concerning discovery matters. Specifically, the defendant complained that the prosecution was dumping voluminous data on him instead of thoughtfully and carefully searching the data to provide what was relevant to the case. As there were no set rules laid down for ESI discovery as far as criminal cases were concerned, Judge Facciola went by federal civil rules in this case. The defendant?s objections were denied by the judge, with the explanation that there did not exist expert testimony to provide assistance to the court in this criminal case. This ruling however laid the foundation to address any challenges pertaining to e data discovery that could arise in the future.
The plaintiff in the Equity Analytics v Lundin case alleged that a fired worker had sought to access the company?s electronic database following his exit from the company. There was a heated row after it was found that the personal computer belonging the defendant contained company data. The plaintiff wanted unlimited access, while the defendant asserted that there were privileged and otherwise undiscoverable items on his computer and that there needed to be important restrictions. With regard to e data search and discovery matters, and following on from his observations in the O?Keefe case, Judge Facciola ruled that specialist testimony must be in place for assisting the court in decision-making.