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counsel, and when visiting is available depending on pandemic-related conditions, the defendant has access to legal visits. Due to the recently implemented lockdown at the MDC, visitation is not currently available, but MDC legal counsel is arranging for the defendant to receive a VTC call with legal counsel three hours per day every weekday, starting this Friday. Defense counsel will also be able to schedule legal calls on weekends as needed. Given those facts, the defense argument essentially suggests that no defendant could prepare for trial while housed at the MDC—a patently incorrect claim.
The defendant is able to review her discovery using hard drives provided by the Government, discs that defense counsel can send containing any copies of discovery material defense counsel chooses within the confines of the protective order, or hard copy documents provided by defense counsel. The Government has taken multiple steps to address technical difficulties the defendant has encountered when reviewing her hard drives. These steps included modifying and reproducing productions in new formats, asking MDC IT staff to assist the defendant in viewing her hard drives on the MDC computer, and then purchasing and providing a laptop for the defendant’s exclusive use.10 Even when the defendant was temporarily unable to review some files from some hard drives, she was always able to review other portions of her discovery.
10 The Government understands from MDC legal counsel that the defendant has access to the laptop thirteen hours per day during weekdays and has access to the MDC desktop computer thirteen hours per day seven days per week. The use of the laptop is limited to weekdays because the MDC restricts the number of employees who carry the key to the secure location where the laptop is kept, and the employees with that key do not work regularly on weekends. The MDC previously accommodated an exception to this rule while the defendant was in quarantine and arranged for her to use the laptop in her isolation cell on weekends because otherwise she would not have had access to a computer during weekends while in quarantine. Now that she is out of quarantine, the defendant will have access to the MDC desktop computer on weekends.