"It is already past time when people who recognize
and cherish the life-giving and life-preserving qualities
of the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights
can afford to sit complacently by while those freedoms
are being destroyed by sophistry and dialectics. "
- Justice Hugo Black
8. The "Wild Card"
EVEN while the FBI executioners were still fine-combing the Scientology buildings in Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., lawyers for the church set in motion legal machinery to challenge the raids' constitutionality.
They asked the court for a temporary restraining order, arguing that the search warrant was overbroad on its face, and violated the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion and association, as well as the Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful searches and seizures. Moreover, the FBI agents were seizing correspondence and files pertaining to the church's lawsuits against the Govern-
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ment, thus violating the attorney-client privilege. The judge also found the latter action unsettling. He declared:
"It sort of disturbs me when one of the principal defendants in litigation is also a law enforcement agency, which on the basis of an informant's affidavit gains access to the plaintiff's file room. That's a kind of frightening situation."
He added that he did not believe a later motion to suppress the seized material from use as evidence in either a civil or a criminal case would be an adequate legal remedy "if these people are reading all of these files."
The judge asked the Assistant U.S. Attorney if the wording of the final clause in the warrant didn't mean that the FBI agents could view every item in the church's files. The Government counsel admitted that it did.
The court decided that the proper procedure for the church would be to file a motion for suppression of all the material seized. The motion asking a restraining order to halt the search was denied without reaching the merits of the church's arguments.
Three days after the raid, the church filed a request for a protective order prohibiting disclosure by the Government of any of the seized materials to attorneys for, or employees of, federal agencies involved in civil litigation with the church. With the Government attorney's agreement, the court issued the order, which was to remain in effect for ten days.
Church lawyers then petitioned the court for return of its property seized in the raids and suppression of its use by the Government. They recited four grounds for invalidating the search and seizure: (1) the warrant itself was facially a general warrant; (2) the search was exploratory, in violation of the Fourth Amendment; (3) the FBI agents employed excessive and unnecessary force, in violation of U.S.C., Section 3109; and (4) that any probable cause that might have been properly established by the affidavit had grown stale by the time it was implemented.
After carefully reviewing the warrant and the manner of
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its execution, U.S. Chief judge William T. Bryant reached the conclusion that any reasonable magistrate would reach, who regarded the U.S. Constitution as a viable document. He declared:
"Having considered the memoranda filed by representatives of the Church, and of the government and heard their oral arguments with the warrant's facial validity, I find I need go no further. I hold that the grant of authority to the agents to search for and seize any evidence of conspiracies to steal government property and to obstruct justice amounted to a "general warrant" and therefore contravened the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. I am not persuaded that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 163 (1976), is to the contrary."
In a footnote, Judge Bryant observed: "It should be noted that item 162 of the warrant appears to permit seizure of evidence of any conspiracy. I reject such a construction, however, in light of emphasis in the affidavit on the two types of conspiracies I have mentioned." (Italics added.)
The Andresen case, upon which the Government based its argument that, in effect, raiding federal agents could seize anything and everything that interested them is just another example of the high court's disdain for the Constitution.
"The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution," wrote Judge Bryant, "provides:
"'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.' (Emphasis mine.)
"The Fourth Amendment serves to prevent both unjustified and arbitrary interferences with personal security and property. In the first instance the amendment is designed to ensure that the government cannot interfere with a person's
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security unless it has good reason for doing so. The particularity requirement ensures as well that the government cannot conduct a search indiscriminately as by the rummaging through a person's belongings in search of any evidence of any crime whatsoever. It accomplishes this end in two ways. First, it leaves to a neutral judicial officer the initial decision as to what can be seized."
(In another footnote to his ruling, Judge Bryant noted that "As to what is to be taken, nothing is to be left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.") (Emphasis mine.)
"Second, it circumscribes the permissible bounds of the search itself; as a commonly used example illustrates, an officer executing a warrant could not reasonably expect to find a stolen elephant in a kitchen closet or in the drawer of a desk.
"As particularity is required, so necessarily is generality forbidden. Opposition to the so-called 'general warrant' has firm roots in the history of Anglo-American law. As Justice Stewart once observed, writing for a majority of the Supreme Court in Stanford v. Texas, 379 U. S. 476, 481-82 (1965):
'These words [commanding a particularized description of the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized] are precise and clear. They reflect the determination of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the people of this new Nation should forever 'be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects' from intrusion and seizure by officers acting under the unbridled authority of a general warrant. Vivid in the memory of the newly independent Americans were those general warrants known as writs of assistance under which officers of the Crown had so bedeviled the colonists. The hated writs of assistance had given customs officials blanket authority to search where they pleased for goods imported in violation of the British tax laws. They were denounced by James Otis as 'the worst instrument of arbitrary power,
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the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book, because they placed the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. The historic occasion of that denunciation, in 1761 at Boston, has been characterized as 'perhaps the most prominent event which inaugurated the resistance of the colonies to the oppressions of the mother country. 'Then and there,' said John Adams, 'then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child of independence was born.' Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S., 616, 625 (1886).
"Also it is significant, in considering the propriety of seizure of a church's documents that the First and Fourth Amendments share at least in part a common heritage.
" 'Historically the struggle for freedom of speech and press in England was bound up with the issue of the scope of the search and seizure power.' Marcus v. Search Warrants, 367 U.S. 717, 724 (1961).' "
Judge Bryant noted that the search warrant used as authority in the raid against the Church of Scientology was flawed by precisely the same evil that distinguishes general warrants.
"The warrant in this case authorized - if indeed it did not direct -agents of the FBI to examine carefully and completely the contents of every document in the fourth-floor files of the Church and to make ad hoc, on-the-spot decisions as to which of those documents constitute evidence of conspiracy - an amorphous and open-ended crime that has, since its conceptual inception, perplexed commentators and courts alike.
"In my view, this warrant - addressed as it is, to the crime of conspiracy - invited the agents to seize any documents in the Church's files that struck their fancy ... The sweep of that discretion is constitutionally intolerable."
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Noting that the Government rested its case primarily on the authority of Andresen v. Maryland, and that, in fact, the warrant in the instant case was patterned after one in Andresen, the court affirmed:
"I do not believe that Andresen stands for the proposition that a warrant authorizing search for evidence of particular conspiracies comports with the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment."
Judge Bryant said that if the Supreme Court's decision in the Andresen case were construed to mean that agents searching for evidence of one crime may at the same time search for evidence of other crimes (as they did in their search of the Scientology premises), the particularity requirement would be rendered a nullity.
"Hence I cannot believe that the court intended Andresen to be interpreted so broadly, or so literally. For a warrant must satisfy both the probable cause and particularity commands, not simply the former." (Italics his).
The Judge admitted that searches for "evidence of" crimes is no longer prohibited (and that in itself is a serious erosion of the Fourth Amendment), but refused to believe that the particularity requirement had been discarded along with the "mere evidence" rule. "Rather, the government can safely assume only that searches for particular evidence will be condoned." (Emphasis his).
The court took cognizance of the fact that in the warrant, the Government described in great detail the alleged conspiracies to burglarize Government offices, steal Government property, and obstruct the criminal investigation. This, of course, gave the whole business the brisk air of a proper search for specific evidence. In practice, however, the warrant became a mere legal pretext for the Government to lay its hands on anything and everything that might serve not only in the case against the suspected offenders, but in future litigation and harrassment of the church itself.
"The potential fruits of the search were limited only by the number of documents in the church's files. To be sure, the
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affidavit provided the agents with substantial guidance as to what to look for. But neither the warrant nor the affidavit [supporting it] -nor both construed together - placed practical limitations upon the determinations respecting what to seize. For unless the contents of any particular document rendered it manifestly criminal, the decision whether to seize it was complicated by the subjective considerations attending the law of conspiracy. In effect, each agent had been delegated authority to consider the relevance of the documents according to his own subjective standards as to what evidence the conspiracies suggested by the affidavit.
"As a practical matter, therefore, a directive to seize 'evidence at this time unknown' of conspiracy is a 'wild card' permitting seizure of anything at all. (Italics mine).
"In terms of the damage done to the Church's interest in freedom from unjustified, indiscriminate seizures, item 162 is indistinguishable from a warrant to seize evidence of 'any crime.' "
The court pointed out that the Government's own attorneys had admitted that "certain documents should not have been seized . . ." and that, indeed, by their own estimate, "approximately half of the documents will be returned . . . "
Judge Bryant ordered the Government forthwith to return to the church all the material seized in the July 8, 1977 raid "under color of authority of a warrant dated July 4, 1977." He further ordered the destruction of all copies of such materials in the possession or control of the Government.
The Government was likewise directed to retrieve and destroy any copies of the materials which may have been passed on to persons outside the Fraud Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office, as well as any copies of such items which may have been made by persons receiving them.
Judge Bryant's opinion had the force of simplicity and the
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clarity of reasoning which are conspicuously wanting in the tortured lucubrations of the marjority of his brethren on the bench. He put the constitutional calipers on the immense and unbridled scope of the Scientology raid and saw that it constituted a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment. As he said himself, it was not necessary to go any further. He saw no reason to belabor the point with all the legal contortions, bends, twists, quibbling, weaseling, and logomachy that charcterized the lengthy proceedings in other courtrooms where the same case was heard. No need to write a 50-page memorandum, full of exact quotes of law and minute details, but as devoid of common sense as it would be of justice. The purported grant of authority to federal agents to roam at will through church offices, seizing anything that aroused their interest, was manifestly a general warrant. Anyone but a simpleton - or a jurist whose vision had been clouded by years of revisionist chicanery - could see that.
Nevertheless, the Government gave notice that they would appeal Judge Bryant's ruling. They well knew that the odds were greatly in their favor that in another forum they would encounter judges who were a different breed of gavel wielder.
There are basically two views prevelant among jurists in America today as to what the U.S. Constitution is
One, the minority view, is that of the judicial realist who believes that the Constitution is the polestar of the American system of Government. He is aware that it is not perfect and that there will always be cases which challenge consistent interpretation. But in controversies involving the clearlydefined, fundamental provisions of the Bill of Rights, he is a strict constructionist. He sees in the essential stability of the nation's supreme law, a guarantee of freedom and at the same time a balance wheel for an orderly society. The framers provided for changes to meet changed needs of a developing country; but those changes were to be accomplished by means of amendments duly ratified by the
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States.
The other view is that of the judicial activist, who seems to have taken literally Chief justice Marshall's dictum that the Constitution is what the judges say it is. For him it provides a loosely formulated set of guidelines - an experiment station for the convenience of political theorists who want to initiate their own brand of social reforms and to force upon the people far-reaching changes in our public philosophy. For him the court is a "pure facade for political functions indistinguishable from those performed by the legislature." (Prof. Robert McCloskey).
A judge of this plumage is not likely to be greatly disturbed by official excesses or violations of, say, the Fourth Amendment, unless such encroachments are upon a faction he favors. All he asks is that the Government "help him with the facts" by providing some legal precedent such as that of Andresen on which to rest its argument.
The U.S. Attomeys challenging Judge Bryant's ruling, moved for an expedited hearing before the Court of Appeals. The case was heard on November 18, 1977, with each side given 20 minutes for oral argument. The main issue before the court was the validity of the search warrant. Was the FBI raid an exploratory search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, as Judge Bryant had ruled?
The Andresen case, upon which the Government had based its principal argument that the warrant was valid, was the main issue argued orally before the appelate court. Church counsel contended, as had Judge Bryant, that the Government's interpretation of Andresen was overbroad, and that the Supreme Court decision in that case had to be read in the light of the Court's reiteration of the historical proscription of general warrants, as well as its statement regarding seizures, that "nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant."
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Counsel for the Government maintained, however, that the constitutional parameters in the Andresen case and in that of the Church of Scientology were "indistinguishable."
The appelate court's three-judge panel overruled judge Bryant's finding that the FBI raid was illegal because it was executed under the purported authority of a general warrant.
In an unsigned opinion, the court - justices MacKinnon, Robb and Markey - upheld the legality of the search warrant because the long affidavit attached to the warrant "very specifically described and designated a great many items to be seized if found on the designated premises."
The judges said that "The search warrant is clearly limited to a search for evidence relating to the crimes of theft of government property, obstruction of justice and a conspiracy to commit such crimes." Thus, for them, item 162, the catch-all clause, as the raiding agents openly referred to it, did not enlarge the scope of the search. That was because of the phrase (adopted from Andresen) "which facts, recited in the accompanying affidavit make out." This brought it into compliance with the latest Supreme Court gloss on the law of searches and seizures.
The court knew, or should have known, that the raiders used item 162 to justify an exploratory and unbridled search of the church premises. It was precisely what Judge Bryant had called it - a "wild card."
As defense attorney Victor Sherman said later, "it is hornbook law that a seizing agent ... is not to have any individual discretion to enlarge the search. He is totally proscribed by terms of the warrant. The warrant specifically lists items 1 through 161, and 162 only says that if he runs across something that specifically relates to the first items - 1 through 161, as helped by the affidavit - then he may take those documents, too, because it would be unreasonable to require the government to specifically describe them.
"But he has no discretion, if he comes across another document which talks about criminal activity of other people
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[or of anything else unrelated to items 1 through 1611 totally unrelated, that he may take it. Otherwise, this would be a general warrant.
"And that is exactly what the District Court decision said, why this was a general warrant. And then the Court of Appeals says, no, you have to look at those last few words, and we limit it in that way. Therefore, it's not a general warrant."
Of course, those last few words did not restrain the FBI agents one little bit, and the appelate judge knew it. One cannot escape the conclusion that the court either believed the Supreme Court had extended the police power of search and seizure beyond traditional Fourth Amendment limitations; or, they had been prejudiced against the Scientologists by being shown allegedly original documents from the IRS, and CIA, as well as a file on bugging, among the seized documents. The latter possibility is favored by the fact that the court subsequently struck mention of it from their opinion.
The appelate judges decided only the question of the warrant's validity, and remanded the case to the District Court for litigation of the other issues involved. These were: whether the search was conducted in a manner that constituted a violation of the Fourth Amendment; whether the FBI agents employed unnecessary force in violation of U.S.C. 3109; and whether the warrant was stale.
The Government asked the court to issue an immediate mandate, rather than waiting the required 14 days, stating that a Grand Jury was being stymied by not being able to examine some of the seized documents. The appeals court granted the immediate issuance of the mandate, but the church appealed to the Supreme Court, which stayed the order for fourteen days, pending receipt of the Government's response. Then Chief Justice Burger, or the full court would decide whether a longer stay should be issued.
A week later, Chief Justice Burger vacated the order, clearing the way for the Government to show a grand jury hundreds of documents seized by the FBI during their raid
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on the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. However, Government attorneys were still barred from reviewing the documents and presenting them to the grand jury because Judge Bryant was hearing the issues remanded to him by the appeals court, and he ordered that the documents could not be put to the grand jury until the remaining issues were resolved.
Meanwhile, the church had brought an action in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking the return of the documents seized in the July 8, 1977 raids on the two Hollywood premises.
Before the hearing on the merits could proceed, however, Judge Bryant issued his ruling that the search warrant used in the Washington, D.C. raid was a general warrant and hence unconstitutional.
Since the warrants used in the Hollywood raids were identical in wording to that purporting to authorize the Washington search and seizure, the question arose of collateral estoppel. This meant that Judge Bryant's decision would also prevail in the California case. Accordingly, the District Court in California on August 8, 1977, issued an order modeled upon that of Judge Bryant, which required the return of the seized property to the church. The Government appealed this order to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
When the Court of Appeals in Washington reversed judge Bryant's decision, the U. S. Court for the Central District of California requested the Ninth Circuit appelate court to remand the case for reconsideration. The appeals court responded by returning the case to the Central District Court.
The Government wanted to get the seized documents before the grand jury which had been investigating the Wolfe-Meisner operations, and was due to expire on April 12, 1978. For that reason, U.S. District Judge Malcolm M.
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Lucas obliged the Government attorneys by expediting the hearings. He set March 30, 1978 as the date for an evidentiary hearing.
Scientologists who had been present in court during previous hearings before judge Lucas, had the uneasy feeling that a rapport existed between him and legal representatives of the Government. Whether this misgiving was justified or not, they were careful observers of all that went on in and around the courtroom.
In a sworn affidavit, one of the church's ministers reported that on the first morning of the resumed hearings, he witnessed activity around Judge Lucas' chambers that he regarded as anything but reassuring.
"During the time I was waiting for the court session to begin," he said, "I noted that Assistant U.S. Attorney Banoun went into the door leading into Judge Lucas' chambers.
"At approximately 10 a.m., and before the morning session had begun, I observed United States marshals ushering in two small dollies on which were several enclosed, black cases. The first dolly held two large cases (approximately 21/2 feet by 11/2 feet), and a smaller one. The second dolly carried one large case and one small one. The marshals cleared everyone out of the way and went into Judge Lucas' chambers with the cases.
"There was a delay in starting the proceedings. I continued to wait in the hallway outside of Judge Lucas' courtroom, directly in front of the door labeled Judge's Chambers. During the delay, I observed Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond Banoun enter the door leading to Judge Lucas' chambers, and come out on several occasions. I also noticed, prior to the start of the morning session, Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry Schuelke go into the hallway leading to judge Lucas' chambers.
"At no time during these occurrences, did I observe our church attorney enter the Judge's chambers.
"I observed Assistant U.S. Attorneys Banoun and Schuelke enter the door leading to Judge Lucas' chambers on
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several occasions throughout the day on March 30, 1978."
After two days of evidentiary hearings, judge Lucas upheld the FBI's execution of the warrants. The warrants were facially valid. As for the church's claim to First Amendment protections, it had not "cited any authority for the proposition that a search and seizure is subject to special procedures because it occurs on the premises of a church." For Judge Lucas, apparently, it was all right for FBI agents to read through all the confessional material in the files of the church, all of them unrelated to the crimes, evidence for which the warrants had been issued. That was not, according to the jurist, interference with the free exercise of religion.
The closest analogy, said Judge Lucas, would be the case of a search directed at the premises of another institution protected by the First Amendment such as a newspaper. He then cited the latest assault on the Amendment by the Supreme Court - the Stanford Daily v. Zucher case - as supporting his position.
judge Lucas also rejected the church's argument that the search warrant was invalid because it was issued in bad faith. Church counsel argued that the Government seized documents without any intention of using them for criminal prosecutions, but solely for the illegitimate purpose of continuing its 20-year harrassment of the church.
Said Judge Lucas: "Although petitioner charges a massive seizure beyond the scope of the warrant, this contention has not been proved ... To date, petitioner has failed to demonstrate anything illegal, or even improper, in the securing and executing of the warrant."
Even if there had been bad faith on the part of the Government, the jurist added, "the moral culpability, or wilfullness of the prosecutor and his agent, be it legitimate or otherwise, would appear to be largely irrelevant."
As for the church's assertion that in executing the warrant at both Cedars-Sinai and Fifield Manor, the FBI agents had used wholly unnecessary and uncalled for destruction of
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church property, judge Lucas found the objection "without merit." Said he: "There is no evidence of the excessive use of
force by the agents in executing the warrants."
Despite the Government's own admission that Scientologists were allowed to observe the search only in periodically escorted tours of the premises, the judge found that "the evidence presented at the hearing revealed that church members were permitted to observe, and did observe, the FBI agents conducting the search and seizure."
The court ruled that seized materials be returned to the U.S. Attorney's office, which was to store it in a safe and secure place. They could, at their discretion, allow access to their staff, and FBI agents, "provided that they assure that the security and confidentiality of the documents will not be
compromised." (Emphasis his).
Until further order of the court, the Government was permitted to use those documents described in the warrant by the numbers one through 161 to present to the Grand Jury.
The Government was not to make any other use of the documents, and "the Assistant United States Attorneys and their nominees (staff and FBI) may not disseminate the seized material to any other agency, institution, or individual(s)."
Evidence that surfaced later strongly supported the conclusion that the latter proscription was observed only in the breach.
The remaining issue to be heard by Judge Lucas whether the FBI agents exceeded the scope of the warrant was argued during the trial week beginning June 6 and continuing through June 9, 1978.
During these hearings, several of the FBI agents who took part in the search and seizure operation, were put on the stand and questioned by church counsel.
An FBI agent, the Congress was once informed, is re-
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quired to have "a photographic eye;" he is obliged to "see all things" and to "remember with unerring accuracy."
Those who testified before judge Lucas, however, did not live up to that glowing appraisal of their mnemonic ability. Most of them had drunk deeply of the waters of Lethe. They could not recall important details of the raid: what specific directions their superiors had given them about what to seize; what the geographical limits of the raid were to be; whether they seized documents in certain areas, and so on. Their testimony is studded with such stock phrases as "I don't remember," "I really don't recall," and "I can't recollect. "
Under the incisive questioning of the church's lawyer, however, a good deal of information concerning the agents' attitudes (and consequently, their behavior) toward the church, and towards the execution of the warrant, emerged.
For example, during the testimony of FBI Special Agent Richard A. Schussler, he was asked:
"Were you told, when you were told you could search the sixth floor, that since this was a religious organization there might be some problem involved with the type of organization that you were searching?"
The following colloquy then ensued:
"It was mentioned at the briefings, cognizant of the fact that it was a church, a purported Church of Scientology, as its name was -
"Did someone use the word, "purported?"
"No, I just used it."
"Where did you get that word? Was that mentioned, that it was 'purported' to be a religious organization?"
"I don't believe so. I just said that myself, that this church - I used it because I'm not sure whether it is myself or not. That's my personal opinion."
Later in his testimony, Agent Schussler said that because the premises being searched belonged to a church, the raiders were "cognizant of the fact that there would be a situation that could be a little more sensitive, and consequently, I
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think that the agents were briefed on a lot of things that maybe in a normal search wouldn't occur. For example, they were told to dress in their suits. They left their coats on."
Other agents in their testimony also referred to this sartorial nicety. Even the judge took judicial notice of it, when Attorney Sherman said that the attitude of the seizing agents was not to take the Church of Scientology seriously at all as far as their First Amendment rights were concerned.
Said Judge Lucas: "I think we have had substantial testimony to the contrary; they should be most politic about their conduct and scrupulous about the wearing of suits."
"Oh, they took scrupulous care to have good manners and wear clothing," the defense attorney replied. "I am talking about the seizing and reading of documents. The First Amendment doesn't say it's okay to violate the First Amendment, if you do it in a suit and tie."
(This brings to mind a bawdy English schoolboy rhyme about a libertine who had a similar sense of propriety:
"With heaving chest, the chap undressed, / The vicar's wife to lie on. / He thought it crude to do it nude, / So he kept his Old School tie on.")
The question, did the FBI agents exceed the geographical limits of the warrant during their 21-hour search, was adequately answered by Special Agent Joseph T. Varley. While on the witness stand, he was asked:
"Agent Varley, what was your understanding as to the geographical area which you were entitled to search pursuant to the search warrant?"
"My understanding, we were allowed to search the entire building."
"Entire Cedars complex?"
"Correct."
"And was that based upon any discussions you had with any person?"
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"It was."
"Whom?"
"The United States Attorney."
"Which one?"
"Mr. Schuelke."
It should be borne in mind that the search warrant specifically stated not only what was to be seized, but also where those items would be located in the building. But the agents, instead of going first to the file cabinets they knew were there, because they were described in the warrant, began a search of everything, everywhere at the same time. It seems obvious that they were, from the outset, bent on an exploratory search of the entire complex - a general search.
Judge Lucas, however, did not see it that way. On July 5, 1977, he issued a decision in which he rebuffed virtually every legal argument presented by the church's attorneys, and ruled that the searches and seizures at both the CedarsSinai Complex and Fifield Manor "were reasonable and properly limited under the circumstances ...
"As directed by the warrant, the agents confined their searches at the Fifield Manor to the warrant's description of the places to be searched, the suite of offices occupied by Henning Heldt."
For Judge Lucas, apparently, Henning Heldt's suite of offices included the cabana on the roof which housed Janet Lawrence's office and to which he had no key nor any executive interest, Miss Lawrence being Mary Sue Hubbard's secretary. It also included the Con-Comm room, and the telex room on the sixth floor.
At Cedars, despite the agents' own admission that their search was of the entire city-block complex, Judge Lucas found that "the testimony of agents who searched at Cedars showed that the search and seizure was limited to the place to be searched, 'the first-floor area housing the offices occupied by the Deputy Guardian for Information and his staff and personnel. . .'
"Finally," said the judge, "Petitioner's contention that the
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agents read through hundreds of thousands of pages presumptively protected by the First Amendment, and perhaps by the evidentiary privileges of priest-penitent and attorney client, hardly merits serious consideration."
As a finishing touch to his ruling, Judge Lucas ordered the Scientologists to pay all the court costs of their action to have the church's property returned.
He allowed the church only 24 hours to seek appelate review because of the pending grand jury proceedings.
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