Robert A. Moylan v. Illinois

Robert Moylan, a licensed clinical professional counselor and psychotherapist, was one of several individuals approved by the DuPage County, Illinois, Probation Department to provide substance abuse counseling to defendants who were convicted of DUI and who were obligated to receive a certain number of counseling hours as a condition of their sentences. A complaint made by the ex-girlfriend of one of his patients prompted an investigation by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office, resulting in suspicion that perhaps Moylan was not providing the number of hours some patients were obligated to receive and that he was representing they had received. A DuPage County judge subsequently issued search warrants for Moylan’s two professional offices. Pursuant to those warrants, the police seized, among other things, a cell phone, three iPads, three computers, and 25 boxes containing 950 patient files. Moylan unsuccessfully moved to suppress those items on the grounds that the warrants were invalid because they were overbroad, and they violated the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment as well as his clients’ privacy rights. He was ultimately convicted by a jury of seven counts of forgery and was sentenced to an aggregate term of eight years’ imprisonment. The Illinois Appellate Court rejected his Fourth Amendment challenges and affirmed. The Illinois Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. The issues presented for review are: (1) Whether the investigation of misconduct by a substance abuse counselor justifies the search warrant seizure of all of the counselor’s patient files and the confidential communications contained therein without the clients’ permission or in camera review by a judge.