From recent news in the case of unlocking one of the San Bernardino suspect's phones, Apple apparently was able to give the FBI data from the phone's most recent iCloud backup. So reading that, can one assume that the data in iCloud backups can be decrypted by Apple employees without any user passcode/key?
The iCloud data is encrypted with an Apple supplied key so yes, Apple can access that data. If you need protection against a legal court order do not use iCloud backup.
@zaph, thanks! That answered my question.