Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-95-05359/USCOURTS-caDC-95-05359-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 540
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Mandamus and Other
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 7, 1997 Decided December 9, 1997 

No. 95-5357

DONALD B. SARGEANT AND 

JOE MOHWISH,

APPELLANTS

v.

HARRY DIXON, JR., UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN 

DISTRICT OF GEORGIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Consolidated with 

Nos. 95-5358, 95-5359

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 95cv01364) 

(No. 95cv01434) 

(No. 95cv01456)

-

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Joe Mohwish, appearing pro se, was on the brief for 

appellants.

Katherine J. Barton, student counsel, argued the cause for 

amicus curiae on the side of appellants, with whom Steven H. 

Goldblatt, appointed by the court, Mary L. Clark, Attorney, 

and Carlos Dequina, student counsel, were on the briefs.

Meredith Manning, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellees, with whom Mary Lou Leary, U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, were 

on the brief.

Before: GINSBURG, SENTELLE, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: Joe Mohwish and Donald B. 

Sargeant seek a writ of mandamus requiring the United 

States Attorneys for the District of Columbia and the Southern District of Georgia to present certain information to a 

grand jury. We hold that they do not have constitutional 

standing to pursue such relief, and we therefore affirm the 

judgment of the district court dismissing their suit for lack of 

jurisdiction.

I. Background

The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 includes several 

provisions designed to encourage citizens to report crimes 

and to guard against the possibility of government corruption. 

One section provides that:

It shall be the duty of each [special] grand jury ... to 

inquire into offenses against the criminal laws of the 

United States alleged to have been committed within that 

district. Such alleged offenses may be brought to the 

attention of the grand jury by the court or by any 

attorney appearing on behalf of the United States for the 

presentation of evidence. Any such attorney receiving 

information concerning such an alleged offense from any 

other person shall, if requested by such other person, 

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ty of such other person, and such attorney's action or 

recommendation.

18 U.S.C. § 3332(a).

Convicted felons Joe Mohwish, whose appeals have been 

heard and largely rejected by the Supreme Court, see Mohwish v. United States, 507 U.S. 956 (1993), and Donald Sargeant claim that they have information relating to various 

crimes committed by officers of the United States Government, including the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, 

"all former directors of the Executive Office for United States 

Attorneys dating back to 1980," the district judge who presided at Mohwish's trial, the circuit judges who heard his appeal, 

and various subordinate officials. The alleged information 

relates to three conspiracies, to wit: (1) a conspiracy to 

present false evidence at Mohwish's trial; (2) a conspiracy 

wrongfully to prosecute several other individuals; and (3) a 

conspiracy within Prison Industries, Inc. to violate various 

laws. Mohwish sent these allegations to the Office of the 

Attorney General, along with two books of what Mohwish 

describes as "hard and verifiable" evidence, and requested 

pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3332 that the evidence be presented 

to a grand jury.

When after several inquiries Mohwish had received no 

reply, he and Sargeant (hereinafter collectively Mohwish) 

brought three mandamus actions in the district court seeking, 

among other things, to compel the U.S. Attorneys to present 

the evidence to a grand jury. Mohwish also sought (1) to 

have a grand jury empanelled in the event that one was not 

already sitting; (2) to present his information to the grand 

jury personally or through his lawyer, but see Simpson v. 

Reno, 902 F. Supp. 254, 257 (D.D.C. 1995) (holding that 

§ 3332 does not give plaintiff right personally to present 

information to grand jury), aff'd 1996 WL 556625 (D.C. Cir. 

Sept. 25, 1996); (3) to compel the Attorney General and the 

United States Attorneys for the Southern District of Georgia 

and for the District of Columbia to "take any and all steps to 

assist the petitioners ... throughout these matters," a step 

for which there is no apparent authority; (4) to have the 

court appoint a special prosecutor, but see In re Kaminski,

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960 F.2d 1062 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (holding that private citizen 

lacks standing to seek appointment of special prosecutor); or 

(5) to have the district court itself present his information to 

the grand jury pursuant to § 3332a point Mohwish does not 

seem to have pursued upon appeal.

The district court dismissed the three actions, sua sponte,

on the ground that "a private party lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another.... Accordingly, plaintiffs do not have standing." Mohwish appealed, and this court consolidated the three actions and 

appointed the amicus curiae to present arguments on Mohwish's behalf.

II. Analysis

Mohwish's request that his evidence be presented to the 

grand jury is, unlike his other requests, at least plausible. 

Section 3332 says on its face that the U.S. Attorney "shall" 

present to the grand jury information provided by "any 

person," and one district court has held that any person has 

standing to enforce this duty. See In re Grand Jury Application, 617 F. Supp. 199 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) (granting mandamus 

to enforce § 3332); see also Simpson, 902 F. Supp. at 254 

(dictum). In our view, however, Mohwish does not have 

standing to enforce the statute.

In order to have standing to sue in federal court, Article 

III of the Constitution of the United States requires that a 

complainant have suffered an injury in fact, which the Supreme Court has defined as the invasion of a concrete, 

imminent, and legally cognizable interest. See Lujan v. 

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 573 n.8 (individual can enforce procedural rights only if "the procedures in 

question are designed to protect some threatened concrete 

interest of his that is the ultimate basis of his standing"). A 

legally cognizable interest means an interest recognized at 

common law or specifically recognized as such by the Congress. See id. at 578 (noting that the Congress may "elevat[e] to the status of legally cognizable injuries concrete, de 

facto injuries that were previously inadequate in law").

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The Government argues, and we agree, that the interests 

Mohwish proffersin the prosecution of government officials 

and in seeing that the laws are enforcedare not legally 

cognizable within the framework of Article III. See Linda 

R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973) (interest in 

prosecution of another does not support standing); Lujan,

504 U.S. at 574-78 (1992) (generalized grievance about proper 

application of laws does not support standing). Insofar as 

Mohwish has a legally cognizable interest in collaterally attacking his conviction by convincing a grand jury to indict the 

federal officers who, he alleges, wrongfully prosecuted him, 

the vindication of that interest on the basis of the allegations 

in his complaint is too speculative (not to say fanciful) to 

support his standing. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561 (standing 

also requires that it be " 'likely,' as opposed to merely 'speculative,' that the injury will be redressed by a favorable 

decision.").

Finally, insofar as the amicus asserts that Mohwish has an 

interest merely in "being heard," we do not conceive that to 

be an end in itself but only a means to some other end

presumably one or more of the three ends proffered and 

found wanting in the prior paragraph. A grand jury hears 

evidence for the purpose of deciding whether a prosecution is 

warranted. It follows that if Mohwish has an interest in 

"being heard" by the grand jury that is at all relevant to the 

grand jury's mission, it can only be because he has an ulterior 

interest in seeing certain persons prosecuted. If Mohwish 

has any other interest in being heardsuch as the cathartic 

benefit he might derive from telling the story of his own 

wrongful prosecution, not unlike the interest of the "ancient 

Mariner [who] stoppeth one of three" his tale to tellthat 

interest is not cognizable in a legal system concerned only 

with the redress of concrete injuries.

Indeed, there is nowhere in our legal system a recognized 

interest merely in "being heard" as an end in itself. To the 

extent that the "right to be heard" has a familiar ring at all, it 

is as an echo of procedural due process. The right to due 

process is an instrumental entitlement aimed at ensuring that 

a person is not wrongfully deprived of his liberty or of an 

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interest in property. As the Supreme Court said in Fuentes 

v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972):

The constitutional right to be heard is a basic aspect of 

the duty of government to follow a fair process of decisionmaking when it acts to deprive a person of his 

possessions. The purpose of this requirement is not only 

to ensure abstract fair play to the individual. Its purpose, more particularly, is to protect his use and possession of property from arbitrary encroachmentto minimize substantively unfair or mistaken deprivations of 

property.

Id. at 80-81. Absent an underlying property or liberty 

interest, therefore, one has no entitlement to procedural due 

process and hence no "right to be heard."

The amicus suggests that because § 3332 itself gives 

Mohwish a right to be heard he need not assert a reason for 

wanting to be heard, let alone a concrete interest in being 

heard, any more than a person suing under the Freedom of 

Information Act need allege a reason for pursuing the information to which he has a statutory right. See, e.g., Akins v. 

FEC, 101 F.3d 731, 736 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (anyone denied 

access to information under FOIA has standing to sue regardless of reason for wanting information); see also Maxwell 

L. Stearns, Standing and Social Choice: Historical Evidence, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 309, 453-59 (1995) (arguing preLujan caselaw indicates Congress has power to "define abstract injuries as individual rights enforceable in federal 

court"). The analogy does not hold, however; the one case 

involves receiving information from, the other giving information to, the Government. The receipt of information is a 

tangible benefit the denial of which constitutes an injury, 

whereas the giving of information is at most of indirect 

benefit to the giver.

We emphasize that Mohwish lacks standing because he has 

failed to identify any cognizable injury, not because § 3332 is 

inherently unenforceable at the instance of a private litigant; 

for example, a person who would be entitled to a bounty if a 

prosecution were initiated might well have standing. Cf. 

Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573. Even if holding that Mohwish lacks 

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standing meant that no one could initiate judicial enforcement 

of § 3332, however, it would not follow that Mohwish (or 

anyone else) must have standing after all. Rather, in such 

circumstance we would infer that "the subject matter is 

committed to the surveillance of Congress, and ultimately to 

the political process." United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 

166, 179 (1974).

III. Conclusion

In sum, Mohwish alleges no interest sufficient to give him 

standing to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 3332. The judgment of the 

district court, dismissing his petition for lack of jurisdiction, is 

therefore

Affirmed.

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