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Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 2004 Decided January 11, 2005

No. 03-5192

Ramon Lopez

Appellant

v.

Department of Justice,

Appellee

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 99cv01722)

Sidney A. Rosenzweig, appointed by the court, argued the

cause as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on the

brief was Robert S. Litt.

Ramon Lopez, pro se, was on the brief for appellant.

Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Kenneth L. Wainstein,

U.S. Attorney, and Robin M. Earnest, Assistant U.S. Attorney.

R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an

appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and SENTELLE and

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge: Ramon Lopez appeals the

District Court’s decision in which the court held that he was not

entitled to certain documents related to a grand jury

investigation under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”).

Specifically, the court held that the documents requested by

Lopez fell within the third class of documents exempted from

FOIA: documents protected by other statutes (in this case,

documents covered by Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of

Criminal Procedure). See Memorandum Opinion, Lopez v. U.S.

Dep’t of Justice, No. 99-1722, slip op. at 4-5 (D.D.C. filed Mar.

19, 2001) (“Memo Order”). See also Memorandum Denying

Reconsideration, Lopez v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, No. 99-1722,

slip op. at 6-7 (D.D.C. filed Jan. 21, 2003) (“Denial of

Reconsideration”). Lopez contends that the documents

requested do not fall under the purview of Rule 6(e), and

therefore are not covered by FOIA Exemption 3. Because we

agree with the District Court’s conclusion that dates on which

grand jury subpoenas and requests for production, writs of

testificandum and witness debriefings are all items that

inherently reveal secret matters occurring before the grand jury,

we affirm in part the court’s grant of summary judgment. But

because dates on which prosecutors interviewed prospective

grand jury witnesses do not inherently reveal secret matters

occurring before a grand jury, and because the Government has

failed to demonstrate how disclosing the date of any particular

witness interview would reveal a protected aspect of the grand

jury, we remand this case to the District Court, instructing it to

order the Department of Justice to release the dates on which it

interviewed grand jury witnesses prior to testimony.

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I. Background

On June 19, 1990, Appellant Lopez (“Lopez”) was charged

in District Court with possession of cocaine with intent to

distribute, and conspiracy to possess cocaine. In September

1991 he was tried and convicted on all counts; he was sentenced

in January of the following year. Throughout the trial and

sentencing, Lopez was represented by A. Scott Miller

(“Miller”). With new counsel, Lopez appealed. The conviction

was affirmed.

Lopez later learned that the grand jury investigating him

had also investigated Miller. On January 12, 1994, Miller

pleaded guilty to money laundering and other charges. Lopez

moved to vacate his own sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255

(permitting collateral attack on convictions). 

Beginning in 1997, Lopez began to file FOIA requests

seeking information regarding the grand jury investigation from

the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). In June 1999, Lopez

commenced, pro se, a civil action under FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552,

and the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, to secure the

documents requested. On February 23, 2000, in response to an

order of the District Court, Lopez clarified and limited the scope

of his requests. The requests were revised over the course of the

litigation. By the time the District Court issued its Memo Order,

they had taken the following form:

1) “All reports of investigations (or segregable portions)

during civil or criminal investigations of A. Scott Miller

from 1988 through January 13, 1994, including dated

handwritten notes, interviews and surveillance by agents of

the United States Customs Service.” [“Request One”]

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2) “Copies of any and all subpoenas, or segregable portions

of it, writs of testificandum, or requests for production of

federal or state prisoners before Grand Jury 91-7 or any

other grand jury investigating Miller as a target or subject,

or for interviews or debriefings.” [“Request Two”]

3) “Copies of the Report of Investigation closing the first

investigation against Miller, opening the second

investigation against him, and a report as a result of an

interview between Miller and Customs agents in or around

May, 1991, which resulted in a false statement charge

against Miller.” [“Request Three”] 

Lopez, Memo Order, slip op. at 3.

With regard to Request Two, Lopez requested that the

District Court order the DOJ to produce a Vaughn index of the

documents being withheld. See Vaughn v. Rosen, 484 F.2d 820,

827-29 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 977 (1974). He

made that request in April 2000; two months later, in his June

12, 2000 opposition to DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case, he

asserted that he was not “requesting any name of witness [sic],

or jurors . . . but the dates that those documents were issued.”

Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to

Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss or in the Alternative for

Summary Jugment [sic], and in Support of Plaintiff’s Cross

Motion for Summary Judgment at 12 (emphasis in original).

In support of its motion for summary judgment, the DOJ

cited as a reason for its failure to disclose the sought-after

documents: those matters were “specifically exempted from

disclosure by statute.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3) (“Exemption 3”).

The “statute” invoked here was Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules

of Criminal Procedure (secrecy of grand jury proceedings). In

March 2001, the District Court granted DOJ’s motion for

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summary judgment regarding the request for grand jury

information, per Exemption 3. The court did not address the

issue of segregability of dates or other information. Lopez filed

a motion for reconsideration, in which he agreed that

disclosure of the subpoenas and writs of testificandum,

which would reveal the identities of the witness before the

grand jury is prohibited under Rule 6(e) . . . . However,

disclosure of segregable portions of those documents, e.g.,

the dates of the documents were prepared, issued, etc., are

not prohibit [sic], does not violated [sic] the core of the

Rule. 

Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration, Clarification of March

19, 2001 Order at 4 (emphasis in original).

On March 11, 2002, the Court granted Lopez’s renewed

motion requiring DOJ to file an unredacted Vaughn index listing

the dates of 15 reports of investigation, but not dates on which

subpoenas were issued. The DOJ filed the Vaughn index a few

weeks later.

Finally, in January 2003, the District Court granted the DOJ

summary judgment with respect to FOIA Requests One and

Three, per FOIA’s Exemption 7(C) (unwarranted invasion of

personal privacy). Denial of Reconsideration at 14 (citing 5

U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C)).

Lopez timely filed this appeal. On March 29, 2004, this

Court granted the DOJ’s motion for summary affirmance on the

issues other than the dates in the grand jury documents. Lopez

v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, No. 03-5192 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 29, 2004)

(order granting partial summary affirmance). Attorneys

Rosenzweig and Litt were appointed amicus curiae to present

arguments in favor of Lopez’s position. Id.

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II. Analysis

The standard governing a grant of summary judgment in

favor of an agency that claims it has fully discharged its

FOIA disclosure obligations is well established. . . . [T]he

agency must show, viewing the facts in the light most

favorable to the requester, that there is no genuine issue of

material fact. . . . We review the issue de novo on the

district court record.

Steinberg v. DOJ, 23 F.3d 548, 551 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

This Court recognized long ago that requests for documents

related to grand jury investigations implicate FOIA’s third

exemption, because Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal

Procedure prohibits government attorneys and others from

“disclos[ing] a matter occurring before the grand jury.” FED. R.

CRIM. P. 6(e)(2)(B). This is not to say that Rule 6(e) draws “a

veil of secrecy . . . over all matters occurring in the world that

happen to be investigated by a grand jury.” SEC v. Dresser

Industries, Inc., 628 F.2d 1368, 1382 (D.C. Cir.)(en banc), cert.

denied, 449 U.S. 993 (1980). Quite the contrary: “[t]here is no

per se rule against disclosure of any and all information which

has reached the grand jury chambers.” Senate of the

Commonwealth of PuertoRico v. DOJ, 823 F.2d 574,582 (D.C.

Cir. 1987) (“SCPR”). The relevant inquiry for this Court is

whether disclosure of the information requested would “tend to

reveal some secret aspect of the grand jury’s investigation, such

matters as the identities of witnesses or jurors, the substance of

testimony, the strategy or direction of the investigation, the

deliberations or questions of jurors, and the like.” Id. (internal

quotation marks omitted).

This Court need not evaluate the revelatory characteristics

of every individual document in each case before it. As the

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Supreme Court suggested, “categorical decisions may be

appropriate and individual circumstances disregarded when a

case fits into a genus in which the balance characteristically tips

in one direction.” DOJ v. Reporters Committee for the Freedom

of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 776 (1989). See also Maydak v.

DOJ, 218 F.3d 760, 766 (D.C. Cir. 2000). We find such a

categorical approach appropriate on the facts before us in this

case. Lopez has requested a specific set of classes of

documents: grand jury subpoenas, writs of testificandum,

requests for production, pre-testimonial interviews, and posttestimonial debriefings. We examine each of those classes of

documents in turn.

Grand Jury Subpoenas: This Court has recognized that the

term “grand jury subpoena” is in some respects a misnomer,

because the grand jury itself does not decide whether to issue the

subpoena; the prosecuting attorney does. Doe v. DiGenova, 779

F.2d 74, 80 & n.11 (D.C. Cir. 1985). But the grand jury’s

limited role in the formal issuance of a grand jury subpoena is

immaterial to the question before us today. On this point there

can be no dispute: The date on which a grand jury subpoena was

issued inherently tends to “reveal” the “direction of the

investigation.” The prosecutor may issue the subpoena without

the knowledge of the grand jury, but his authority to do so is

grounded in the grand jury investigation, not the prosecutor’s

own inquiry. Federal prosecutors have no authority to issue

grand jury subpoenas independent of the grand jury. See SARA

SUN BEALE ET AL., 1 GRAND JURY LAW AND PRACTICE 6-11 to

6-12 & n.13 (2d ed. 2004). See also Durbin v. United States,

221 F.2d 520, 522 (D.C. Cir. 1954) (“It was clearly an improper

use of the District Court’s process for the Assistant United

States Attorney to issue a grand jury subpoena for the purpose

of conducting his own inquisition.”). DiGenova may have noted

that the grand jury itself does not decide to issue the subpoena,

but it also noted that “a grand jury subpoena gets its name from

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the intended use of the testimony.” 779 F.2d at 80 n.11

(emphasis added). Because the evidence and testimony

subpoenaed is that which is intended to be used by the grand

jury, the subpoenas and the dates on which they are issued tend

to reveal the direction of the relevant investigation. All grand

jury subpoenas (be they ad testificandum or duces tecum) and

therefore their dates of issuance fall within FOIA’s third

exemption.

“Writs of Testificandum” and Requests for Production of

Prisoners: Lopez’s Request Two is ambiguous to the extent that

it does not specify whether “writs of testificandum” refers to the

aforementioned “subpoenas ad testificandum” or “writs of

habeas corpus ad testificandum.” But because the following

item in Request Two is “requests for production of federal or

state prisoners,” the ambiguity need not be resolved here.

 

Writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum, when submitted by

federal prosecutors to secure the presence of prisoners before the

grand jury, are governed by the same rules that govern the

issuance of subpoenas: Rule 17 of the Federal Rules of Criminal

Procedure. U.S. v. Garrard, 83 F.3d 889, 893 (7th Cir. 1996);

U.S. v. Rinchack, 820 F.2d 1557, 1567 & n.13 (11th Cir. 1987).

When these writs are submitted by prosecutors, they are meant

to serve the same purposes as subpoenas; they simply obligate

a different party (i.e., the custodian of the would-be witness

rather than the would-be witness himself). Garrard, 83 F.3d at

893. For that reason, the foregoing discussion of subpoenas

applies to writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum and “requests

for production of federal or state prisoners” submitted by the

prosecutor for the purpose of securing testimony before the

grand jury, and any such writs and requests fall within FOIA’s

third exemption.

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Preliminary Witness Interviews: Prosecutors often

interview witnesses in advance of grand jury testimony. In

considering whether the dates of such interviews tend to reveal

the inner workings of a grand jury, we must “differentiate

between . . . [the prosecutor’s] own investigation, and . . . a

grand jury’s investigation, a distinction of the utmost

significance.” In re Sealed Case No. 99-3091, 192 F.3d 995,

1002 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (emphasis in original). A prosecutor may

interview a potential grand jury witness either as part of a

“screening” process in advance of actual grand jury testimony,

or as part of the prosecution’s own investigation. See United

States v. Burke, 856 F.2d 1492, 1495 (11th Cir. 1988), cert.

denied sub nom. Greeson v. United States, 492 U.S. 908 (1989).

Because a preliminary interview may serve the distinct

interests of the prosecutor qua prosecutor or of the prosecutor

qua “grand jury facilitator,” the date of a preliminary interview

does not on its face convey any information about “some secret

aspect of the grand jury’s investigation.” In many cases,

revealing the dates of preliminary interviews conducted for the

purposes of “screening” potential witnesses may in fact “tend to

reveal some secret aspect of the grand jury,” but we cannot, on

the record before this Court, make such a finding on a

categorical basis. The Government has failed to meet its burden

of demonstrating some “nexus between disclosure and

revelation of a protected aspect of the grand jury’s

investigation.” SCPR, 823 F.2d at 584. Unless the Government

can demonstrate that disclosure of the date of a particular

preliminary interview would tend to reveal the inner workings

of the grand jury investigation, that date is not exempt from

disclosure under FOIA’s third exemption.

Subsequent Witness Debriefings: Just as preliminary

interviews may serve the purposes of the prosecutor’s own

investigation or the purposes of the prosecutor’s role with

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respect to the grand jury, post-testimony debriefings may also

serve dual purposes. But pre-testimony interviews and posttestimony debriefings differ in one material respect: a posttestimony debriefing of a witness inherently indicates that the

witness did, in fact, testify before the grand jury. In this respect,

a post-testimony debriefing is much more akin to a grand jury

subpoena than to a pre-testimony interview: just as a subpoena

indicates that the grand jury wants a witness to testify, a

debriefing indicates that the grand jury wanted a witness to

testify (and that the witness did, in fact, testify). In either case,

there is a nexus between disclosure of the information and

revelation of the grand jury’s strategy or direction in the past.

Therefore, just as we hold that the issuance dates of grand jury

subpoenas fall within the third exemption to FOIA, we hold that

the dates of post-testimony witness debriefings categorically fall

within the third exemption to FOIA.

III. Conclusion

Because we hold that FOIA’s Exemption 3, incorporating

Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,

categorically exempts (i) issuance dates of grand jury

subpoenas, (ii) writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum and any

other type of request of production of prisoners for the purposes

of grand jury testimony, and (iii) the dates of post-testimony

debriefings of grand jury witnesses, we affirm in part the

District Court’s grant of summary judgment. But because we

hold that the exemption does not include all preliminary

interviews conducted by prosecutors supervising grand jury

investigations, and because the Government has failed to prove

an exemption should be given in the circumstances of this case,

we reverse in part the District Court’s grant of summary

judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion. We instruct the District Court, upon remand,

to order the Government to release the dates it interviewed grand

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jury witnesses.

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