U.S. prosecutors have just unloaded a massive amount of discovery documents, according to lawyers for former FTX CEO Sam-Bankman Fried on Aug. 25.
In the relevant court filing, lawyers broadly objected to the government’s intention of opening access to discovery materials — that is, evidence and legal information — while Bankman-Fried is held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn (MDC).
Lawyers emphasized that the amount of information at play is an issue, stating:
“We further object to the Government’s production, just yesterday, of an additional 4 million pages of discovery. The Government cannot be allowed to dump millions of pages on the defense less than six weeks before trial.”
Elsewhere in the filing, lawyers said that discovery information amounts to terabytes worth of data to date, adding that millions of additional pages are forthcoming.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also complained that the government has no plan to deliver the discovery documents to their client at MDC despite his rapidly approaching trial date. As such, lawyers urged the court to provide Bankman-Fried with internet access. They stated that current plans, which allow Bankman-Fried to meet with lawyers twice a week, are not sufficient to accomplish the data review that is needed.
“No substitute”
Lawyers argued that there is “no substitute” for Bankman-Fried’s work on the case, asserting that their client has extensive knowledge of companies involved in events and is uniquely capable of locating relevant documents “quickly and efficiently.” Though Bankman-Fried has been provided with a laptop, lawyers said that this device has limited internet access and does not allow him to collaborate with lawyers or access his previous work.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers further noted that their client previously compiled specific data into a spreadsheet with millions of cells. They said that he spent between 80 and 100 hours per week reviewing discovery prior to his imprisonment.
In light of the situation, lawyers urged for Bankman-Fried’s temporary release, which would allow the former FTX CEO to work with the defense and access the internet five days per week in a dedicated courthouse working space.
Lawyers have pressed for those release conditions since at least Aug. 18.
I hope they didn't print 4 million pages and gave it to them digitally.
According to some quick googling and calculator exercises, that's like 400 pine trees and at 50 pages per minute would take about 55.5 days of non-stop printing. Please check my math.
https://ribble-pack.co.uk/blog/much-paper-comes-one-tree#:~:text=How%20much%20paper%20comes%20from%20one%20tree%2C%20on%20average%3F,use%205%25%20of%20a%20tree.
Checked math, you're right. And 50ppm is only a slightly slower laser office-scale printer, so fair enough on that too. I have seen a 100ppm printer in a court, but even still that's literally weeks of printing.
We really need to re-evaluate this whole legal paper data storage model, the judicial system alone must be chewing through the Amazon.
Cheers! Thanks for double checking. I want to believe they had it on a thumb drive but everything in me says it was truckloads of boxes.
I'd imagine that even if it were, they'd be using more than one printer
The trees aren't a big deal, really. Most paper comes from farmed trees. It's the chemicals they treat the wood with to break it down into pulp that's the real problem.
The paper industry is also heavy reliant on fresh water.
Very true.
you forgot to account for paper jams and calls to hp support because a new cartridge wasn't recognized by their firmware as 'genuine... then the time to run to costco for a couple non-hp printers to finish the job.