Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-06-30192/USCOURTS-ca9-06-30192-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert J. Bettacchi
Appellee
Henry A. Eschenbach
Appellee
O. Mario Favorito
Appellee
W. R. Grace
Appellee
J. McCaig
Appellee
Alan R. Stringer
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant
Robert C. Walsh
Appellee
Jack W. Wolter
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. No. 06-30192

W. R. GRACE; ALAN R. STRINGER; D.C. No.

HENRY A. ESCHENBACH; JACK W.  CR-05-00007-DWM

WOLTER; WILLIAM J. MCCAIG;

OPINION ROBERT J. BETTACCHI; O. MARIO

FAVORITO; ROBERT C. WALSH,

Defendants-Appellees. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Montana

Donald W. Molloy, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted En Banc

December 12, 2007—Pasadena, California

Filed May 15, 2008

Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Harry Pregerson,

Stephen Reinhardt, Andrew J. Kleinfeld,

Michael Daly Hawkins, Susan P. Graber,

M. Margaret McKeown, Kim McLane Wardlaw,

Raymond C. Fisher, Carlos T. Bea and Milan D. Smith, Jr.,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Fisher;

Concurrence by Judge Hawkins

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COUNSEL

James C. Kilbourne (argued), Kevin M. Cassidy and Allen M.

Brabender, Attorneys, United States Department of Justice,

Washington, District of Columbia; William W. Mercer,

United States Attorney; Kris A. McLean, Assistant United

States Attorney; Ronald J. Tenpas, Acting Assistant Attorney

General, for the plaintiff-appellant. 

Christopher Landau, P.C. (argued), Laurence A. Urgenson,

Tyler D. Mace and Michael D. Shumsky, Kirkland & Ellis

LLP, Washington, District of Columbia; Stephen R. Brown,

Charles E. McNeil and Kathleen L. DeSoto, Garlington Lohn

& Robinson, PLLP, Missoula, Montana, for defendantappellee W. R. Grace & Co. 

Ronald F. Waterman, Gough, Shanahan, Johnson & Waterman, Helena, Montana; David S. Krakoff and Gary A. Winters, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, District of Columbia,

for defendant-appellee Henry A. Eschenbach. 

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Mike Milodragovich and W. Adam Duerk, Milodragovich,

Dale, Steinbrenner & Binney, Missoula, Montana; Jeremy

Maltby, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, California,

for defendant-appellee Jack W. Wolter. 

Palmer Hoovestal, Hoovestal Law Firm, PLLC, Helena, Montana; Elizabeth Van Doren Gray, Sowell, Gray, Stepp & Laffitte, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina; William A. Coates,

Roe Cassidy Coates & Price, PA, Greenville, South Carolina,

for defendant-appellee William J. McCaig. 

Brian Gallik, Goetz, Gallik & Baldwin, P.C., Bozeman, Montana; Thomas C. Frongillo, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP,

Boston, Massachusetts; Vernon S. Broderick, Weil, Gotshal

& Manges LLP, New York, New York, for defendantappellee Robert J. Bettacchi. 

C.J. Johnson, Kalkstein Law Firm, Missoula, Montana; Stephen A. Jonas and Robert Keefe, Wilmer Cutler Pickering

Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, Massachusetts, for defendantappellee O. Mario Favorito. 

Catherine A. Laughner and Aimee M. Grmoljez, Browning

Kaleczyc Berry & Hoven, P.C., Helena, Montana; Stephen R.

Spivack, Bradley Arant Rose & White LLP, Washington, District of Columbia; David E. Roth, Bradley Arant Rose &

White LLP, Birmingham, Alabama, for defendant-appellee

Robert C. Walsh. 

OPINION

FISHER, Circuit Judge: 

We granted en banc review of this appeal by the government, brought pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731, to resolve two

questions. First, does a United States Attorney’s simple certiUNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 5637

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fication under § 3731 that the government’s interlocutory

appeal in a pending criminal case is not taken for purpose of

delay and that the evidence the district court suppressed or

excluded is substantial proof of a fact material in the proceeding suffice to establish our jurisdiction to hear the interlocutory appeal? Second, if so, did the district court in this case

have the authority to order pretrial disclosure by the government of its final list of witnesses and evidentiary documents

and to exclude witnesses and evidence not timely disclosed in

compliance with such orders? 

First, we hold that the United States Attorney’s bare certification regarding delay and materiality in accordance with the

terms of § 3731 was sufficient to give us appellate jurisdiction

to address the government’s objections to the district court’s

orders. We therefore overrule our prior decisions to the extent

that they conflict with our ruling today, including United

States v. Loud Hawk, 628 F.2d 1139 (9th Cir. 1979) (en banc),

and United States v. Adrian, 978 F.2d 486 (9th Cir. 1992).

Second, we hold that the district court did have the authority

to issue and enforce its pretrial orders compelling the government to disclose its witness list and did not abuse its discretion in doing so. We therefore also overrule United States v.

Hicks, 103 F.3d 837 (9th Cir. 1996), to the extent that it purported to deny the district court such authority. 

OVERVIEW

W.R. Grace & Co. mined and processed vermiculite ore

outside Libby, Montana, from the early 1960s until the early

1990s. On February 7, 2005, the United States indicted Grace

and several of its officers on numerous charges alleging that

they engaged in criminal acts during the course of Grace’s

mining operations, related to the improper disposal of

asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. The district court, recognizing the magnitude of the case — with a relevant time

period spanning nearly 30 years and potentially more than a

thousand victims — held a pretrial case management confer5638 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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ence in March 2005 and thereafter entered a case management

order memorializing the results of the conference. 

The March 2005 order established a “firm” trial date of

September 11, 2006, and set forth a discovery schedule. In

pertinent part, the schedule required the government to produce “all discoverable materials specified in Fed. R. Crim. P.

16(a)” by April 29, 2005, “a preliminary list of its intended

witnesses and exhibits” by May 27, 2005, and a “finalized list

of witnesses and trial exhibits, including [a] finalized disclosure of prosecution’s expert witnesses” by September 30,

2005. Moreover, to the extent that the parties intended to

engage expert witnesses at trial, the order required “full[ ]

compl[iance] with the requirements of Rule 16(a)(1)(E) and

Rule 16(b)(1)(C),” including that “expert reports . . . are complete, comprehensive, accurate, and tailored to the issues on

which the expert is expected to testify.” The government did

not object to the district court’s order, and subsequently made

significant disclosures in compliance with it. 

On September 30, 2005, the government notified the district court that it had produced for the defendants its “final

witness list and final exhibit list,” but stated that the government “reserve[d] its right to update its witness list and exhibit

list through the close of all evidence at trial.” The government’s disclosure included more than 230 witnesses. 

The defendants disputed the sufficiency of the government’s disclosures. On November 23, 2005, the district court

issued three orders pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, chiding the government for its “impermissibly narrow view of the obligations under Brady” and clarifying the

materials the government was required to produce pursuant to

Rule 16. 

On December 2, 2005, the parties met with the district

court for a status conference. At this conference, the discussion included the sufficiency of the prosecution’s expert disUNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 5639

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closures, its compliance with the previous discovery orders,

and the defendants’ concern about the growing size of the

government’s witness list. Shortly thereafter, the district court

entered an order on December 5, 2005 (“the December 2005

order”), limiting the government’s presentation of witnesses

at trial “to those witnesses that have been disclosed as of the

filing of this Order” and limiting the reports the government

experts may rely upon to those “contained in the discovery

produced to date or . . . currently subject to an order of this

Court requiring production.” 

In response to government objections, the court on February 17, 2006 clarified that, if necessary for rebuttal, the government could call unlisted witnesses and use other evidence.

The government then brought an interlocutory appeal under

18 U.S.C. § 3731, challenging the district court’s pretrial

orders — specifically the March 2005 case management order

and the court’s December 2005 and February 2006 enforcement orders (collectively, the “enforcement orders”). 

Section 3731 provides in part:

An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court

of appeals from a decision or order of a district court

suppressing or excluding evidence or requiring the

return of seized property in a criminal proceeding,

not made after the defendant has been put in jeopardy and before the verdict or finding on an indictment or information, if the United States attorney

certifies to the district court that the appeal is not

taken for purpose of delay and that the evidence is

a substantial proof of a fact material in the proceeding.

(Emphasis added.) Here, the United States Attorney for the

District of Montana certified in the words of the statute that

the government’s interlocutory appeal “is not taken for purpose of delay and that the evidence excluded by the district

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court’s order described in [the] notice of appeal is substantial

proof of a fact material in the proceeding ongoing before the

district court.” The government contends that its unembellished certification suffices to establish appellate jurisdiction.

On the merits of its appeal, the government challenges the

district court’s authority to require or enforce a finalized pretrial list of witnesses and trial exhibits, and argues that, even

if authorized, the enforcement orders were an abuse of the

court’s discretion. The defendants counter that the government’s § 3731 certification did not adequately establish the

materiality of the excluded evidence,1 so we lack jurisdiction

to hear the government’s appeal; and, in any event, the district

court acted within its authority. 

Adhering to existing Ninth Circuit law, a three-judge panel

of this court declined to accept the government’s bare certification that simply recited the language of § 3731, and

requested the parties to submit supplemental briefs discussing

whether the excluded evidence was in fact “substantial proof

of a fact material in the proceeding.” United States v. W.R.

Grace, 493 F.3d 1119, 1124 (9th Cir. 2007), reh’g en banc

granted, 508 F.3d 882 (9th Cir. 2007). After receiving more

specific information from the government about the nature

and relevance of the excluded evidence, the panel concluded

that the government’s proffer, albeit belated, had satisfied its

burden to demonstrate materiality under Loud Hawk, 628 F.2d

at 1150 (holding that the “government’s right to appeal” is

available only “conditionally”), and Adrian, 978 F.2d at 490

(the government must provide more than a “bare certification”

to establish appellate jurisdiction). On the merits of the

appeal, the panel affirmed the district court’s rulings with

respect to expert witnesses and related documents, but followed Hicks and held that the district court exceeded its

authority in excluding from the government’s case-in-chief

undisclosed nonexpert witnesses. 

1The defendants do not challenge the government’s certification that the

interlocutory appeal is not taken for purposes of delay. 

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We agreed to rehear this case en banc to reexamine the precedents that governed the decision of the three-judge panel.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

“Jurisdiction is a question of law subject to de novo

review.” United States v. Neville, 985 F.2d 992, 994 (9th Cir.

1993). We review de novo a district court’s rulings on the

scope of its authority to order discovery under Federal Rule

of Criminal Procedure 16. United States v. Mendoza-Paz, 286

F.3d 1104, 1111 (9th Cir. 2002).

II. Section 3731

Section 3731 grants the government the right to an interlocutory appeal from a district court’s evidentiary rulings in certain circumstances. We have previously explained that the

government’s “right (via § 3731) to appeal a district court’s

order suppressing evidence is conditional.” Loud Hawk, 628

F.2d at 1150; see Adrian, 978 F.2d at 490-91. “First, the

appeal is not available if the defendant has been put in jeopardy. Second, the appeal must not be taken for purpose of

delay. Third, the evidence suppressed must be substantial

proof of a fact material in the proceeding.” Loud Hawk, 628

F.2d at 1150. We have required that the government’s bare

certification be backed up by a preliminary showing that the

excluded evidence truly is material. See id. (emphasizing that

the materiality “condition must be met before appeal of the

suppression order can properly be taken”). In Adrian, we

defined materiality for purposes of § 3731 thus: “assuming

that the evidence would be admissible, a reasonable trier of

fact could find the evidence persuasive in establishing the

proposition for which the government seeks to admit it.” 978

F.2d at 491. 

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[1] The purposes of our certification-plus rule were salutary

— to assure that the government’s decision to involve us in

the trial process was a carefully considered judgment and to

provide us with enough information to determine whether a

time-consuming appeal was truly justified. Nonetheless, we

are now persuaded that the plain language of the statute shows

that Congress intended that, as long as the other requirements

of § 3731 are present, mere certification regarding the delay

and materiality prerequisites is all the statute requires to

invoke our appellate jurisdiction. This is evident from

§ 3731’s phrasing, “An appeal by the United States shall lie

to a court of appeals . . . if the United States attorney certifies

to the district court that the appeal is not taken for purpose of

delay and that the evidence is a substantial proof of a fact

material in the proceeding.” (Emphasis added.) We read Congress as specifying what the government must do to establish

those jurisdictional preconditions. Nothing in the statute

requires the government to go further and prove that the evidence suppressed or excluded by the district court is actually

material to the proceeding before our jurisdiction can attach.

Where congressional intent “has been expressed in reasonably

plain terms, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564,

570 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover,

Congress specifically instructed us in § 3731 that its “provisions . . . shall be liberally construed to effectuate its purposes.” 18 U.S.C. § 3731. The purpose of § 3731 is to give

the government a window of opportunity to challenge a district court’s exclusion of allegedly material evidence before

jeopardy attaches; we should not, therefore, read into the statute an unwritten additional hurdle, even if well intentioned.2

2The concurrence looks to the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1), as

a point of reference for interpreting § 3731. As the concurrence itself candidly concedes, however, given the contrast between the Westfall Act’s

certification regime and that of § 3731, the Act does not resolve our ultimate inquiry. Concurring op. at 5665-66 & n.3. We are satisfied that

§ 3731 means what it says, a conclusion shared by our sister circuits. More

importantly, our reading does not require accepting the United States

Attorney’s certification as conclusive on the merits, only as sufficient to

trigger our jurisdiction to reach them. 

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[2] Accordingly, we now hold that a certification by a

United States Attorney (personally, not by an Assistant

United States Attorney) that the appeal is not taken for the

purpose of delay and that the evidence is substantial proof of

a fact material in the proceeding is sufficient for purposes of

establishing our jurisdiction under § 3731. The certificationplus rule of Loud Hawk and its progeny is overruled. See

United States v. Gantt, 194 F.3d 987, 998 (9th Cir. 1999);

United States v. Poulsen, 41 F.3d 1330, 1333-34 (9th Cir.

1994); Adrian, 978 F.2d at 490-91; United States v. Layton,

720 F.2d 548, 554 (9th Cir. 1983). 

By so holding, we align ourselves with our sister circuits

that have held that § 3731 is satisfied as long as the United

States Attorney certifies that the statutory conditions are met.

See Gov’t of Virgin Is. v. Hodge, 359 F.3d 312, 325 & n.13

(3d Cir. 2004) (holding that jurisdiction was proper based on

the filing of the certification); United States v. Centracchio,

236 F.3d 812, 813 (7th Cir. 2001) (“We therefore treat as conclusive of our jurisdiction over a [§ 3731] appeal the submission of the certification required by the statute.”); United

States v. Johnson, 228 F.3d 920, 923 (8th Cir. 2000) (holding

that “appellate jurisdiction is proper if the government simply

certifies that the evidence suppressed is substantial proof of a

material fact”); see also United States v. McNeill, 484 F.3d

301, 308-09 (4th Cir. 2007) (suggesting certification alone is

sufficient if timely).3 These holdings are all consistent with

§ 3731’s mandate that an interlocutory appeal “shall lie . . .

if” the United States Attorney makes the specified representations in his or her certification. Our former rule added a hurdle that had to be cleared before our jurisdiction could attach;

that is not what Congress instructed. 

3Two circuits — the Eighth and the Third — have expressly noted the

circuit split, in which the “Ninth Circuit, apparently alone, requires the

government to prove that the evidence suppressed by the district court is

actually ‘material’ to the upcoming trial.” Johnson, 228 F.3d at 923; see

Hodge, 359 F.3d at 325 n.13. 

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The concurring opinion raises two principal concerns based

on its fears of what might go wrong under the prevailing

certification-only rule we are adopting. First, it worries about

delays in the trial proceedings, to the disadvantage of defendants. We acknowledge those concerns but do not believe that

they allow us to impose a two-step screening process that

Congress has not required. Section 3731 not only requires the

United States Attorney to certify that the interlocutory appeal

is not for purpose of delay, but also mandates that the appeal

“shall be taken within thirty days after the decision, judgment

or order has been rendered and shall be diligently prosecuted.” We have the authority to assure that these affirmative

requirements are met.4 Moreover, we also have the ability to

expedite the appellate process should that become necessary

in an individual case, or even on a systemic basis if our experience warrants it. In that regard, we have no evidence that the

certification-plus rule of Loud Hawk is more efficient than

simply accepting certification as sufficient to establish our jurisdiction.5

4For example, we have previously dealt with certificates that are not

timely filed in the district court. See, e.g., United States v. Becker, 929

F.2d 442, 445 (9th Cir. 1991) (noting that whether the government could

supplement the record on appeal with an untimely filed § 3731 certification was a discretionary matter for the court); see also McNeill, 484 F.3d

at 306-10 (noting that although failure to timely file a § 3731 certification

does not deprive the court of jurisdiction over the appeal, the court had

discretion to impose any sanction necessary to enforce the requirement of

filing a § 3731 certification, including dismissal); United States v.

Romaszko, 253 F.3d 757, 759-60 (2d Cir. 2001) (per curiam) (holding that

the late filing of a § 3731 certification does not preclude jurisdiction but

does permit the court to exercise its discretion under Federal Rule of

Appellate Procedure 3(a) to dismiss the appeal). The merits of whether the

government should ever be excused from failure to file a § 3731 certification on a timely basis are not before us in this appeal. 

5The concurrence notes that “[i]t currently takes nine to ten months

from the filing of an interlocutory appeal in a criminal case to its placement on an argument calendar.” Concurring op. at 5679-80. That may be,

although such is not the case when the proceedings are expedited. In any

event, Congress has made the judgment that the government is entitled to

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Second, the concurrence urges that, by accepting the United

States Attorney’s certification as sufficient to invoke our

jurisdiction, we are “blindly trust[ing] United States Attorneys,” adopting a rule that “permits a prosecutor to disrupt

proceedings with the stroke of a pen” and giving the prosecution “unchecked authority to pursue interlocutory appeals

from all suppression orders.” Concurring op. at 5675, 5682,

5679. Not so. The certification itself is a representation by the

United States Attorney, as an officer of the court, that the

appeal is not for purposes of delay and that the suppressed

evidence is indeed material.6 As to materiality, § 3731 provides that the certification establishes only our jurisdiction. If

the merits of the appeal independently require us to question

whether the evidence truly is material, the government’s certification is not conclusive — as the concurrence acknowledges, id. at 5678-79 & n.10 — so we are not required to

“mak[e] new law in a near factual vacuum.” Id. at 5677.

Moreover, should we find the government’s appeal to be

patently frivolous or have reason to believe its certification is

false, we could directly sanction such misconduct, surely a

potent “check” on prosecutorial abuse of the certification process. In short, the certification-only rule that we adopt today

an interlocutory appeal in specified circumstances, and the Loud Hawk

certification-plus rule does nothing to get the appeal on an argument calendar any faster than the prevailing certification-only rule. Indeed,

because we must first determine the jurisdictional issue and then determine the merits separately, a final determination under the Loud Hawk

rule may well take longer. Although the concurrence invokes the appeal

in this case to “demonstrate the Loud Hawk rule’s necessity” to prevent

delay, id., it actually shows the opposite. But for Loud Hawk, the original

panel would not have had to look beyond the certification and spend time

forcing the government to prove the suppressed evidence was material (it

was) before getting to the merits of the appeal. (That “the trial date

remains in limbo,” id. at 5680, is largely a function of our en banc process.) 

6The definition of materiality governing the United States Attorney’s

certification is well established, see Adrian, 978 F.2d at 491 (quoted in

text, above), and remains the law of this circuit. 

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and which is followed in other circuits does not give prosecutors any benefit beyond the statutory right to the interlocutory

appeal that Congress provided in § 3731, or permit a United

States Attorney to misuse the certification process. 

In that regard, we emphasize that we are not diluting a standard implicit in the certification requirement. By specifying

that the United States Attorney must certify the appeal, Congress plainly intended that the decision to take an interlocutory appeal be a serious, considered judgment, not simply an

administrative formality. The Fourth Circuit recently emphasized this point:

The authorization to file these interlocutory

appeals is important to the prosecution of criminal

cases because it permits the government to obtain

appellate review, before jeopardy attaches, of trial

court decisions suppressing what the government

believes is evidence necessary to prove a crime. But

because such an appeal necessarily disrupts trial

court proceedings, the authorization contains an

important limitation that is intended to protect defendants from undue delay . . . 

The certification requirement of § 3731 operates

to ensure that before the United States interrupts a

criminal proceeding (and thereby delays a defendant

from obtaining resolution of the charges against him)

by taking an interlocutory appeal, it has evaluated

whether the appeal is warranted. 

Thus, the filing of a § 3731 certification is not

merely an administrative formality; it serves the

important purpose of assuring the defendant’s protection from undue delay. 

McNeill, 484 F.3d at 308 (emphasis in original) (internal quotations and citation omitted). 

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Significantly, the United States Attorney’s decision to

appeal requires the concurrence of the Solicitor General of the

United States. See Centracchio, 236 F.3d at 813 (concluding

that the Solicitor General’s approval means there is “no significant danger that the appeal will be frivolous, warranting

dismissal rather than disposition on the merits”); Romaszko,

253 F.3d at 760 (“[T]he Solicitor General authorized the

appeal. This authorization likely ensures that the purposes of

section 3731 were met.”); see also McNeill, 484 F.3d at 307

(referring to the United States Attorney obtaining approval

from the Solicitor General “in accordance with internal

Department of Justice policy”); United States v. Colomb, 419

F.3d 292, 296-97 (5th Cir. 2005) (noting that the appeal followed the government obtaining approval of the Acting Solicitor General). Thus we expect the concerns about frivolous or

disruptive attempts to involve us prematurely in ongoing trial

proceedings that animated our previous certification-plus rule

(and trouble our concurring colleague) will be addressed by

the government’s wise and careful invocation of § 3731

appeals. 

[3] In sum, we conclude that the United States Attorney’s

certification in this case suffices to establish our jurisdiction

to hear the government’s interlocutory appeal. We therefore

turn to the government’s challenges to the district court’s pretrial orders. 

III. The Pretrial Case Management and

Enforcement Orders 

The government advances several arguments why the challenged pretrial orders are flawed: First, the district court

lacked the authority to require in its March 2005 order that the

government provide a pretrial witness list; second, even if the

court had such authority, it could not require a final list, especially a year before trial; finally, the exclusionary effect of the

enforcement orders was an inappropriate sanction. In

response, the defendants argue that the district court had

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authority to order witness lists and acted within its discretion

in enforcing its orders. We agree with the defendants. 

A. Authority

We begin with the principle that the district court is

charged with effectuating the speedy and orderly administration of justice. There is universal acceptance in the federal

courts that, in carrying out this mandate, a district court has

the authority to enter pretrial case management and discovery

orders designed to ensure that the relevant issues to be tried

are identified, that the parties have an opportunity to engage

in appropriate discovery and that the parties are adequately

and timely prepared so that the trial can proceed efficiently

and intelligibly. 

The principal orders at issue are the district court’s March

2005 order that, among other things, required the government

to disclose by September 30, 2005 a “finalized list of witnesses”; and the court’s enforcement orders that limited the government’s use of witnesses in its case-in-chief (but not

rebuttal) to those who had been timely disclosed. The government did not object to the March 2005 order at the time, but

when it filed its proposed witness list in September it purported to reserve “its right to update its witness list and

exhibit list through the close of all evidence at trial.” The government now argues that the district court had no authority to

require the government to produce such a witness list, particularly not a finalized list one year before trial, and to preclude

the government from calling additional witnesses not disclosed by the time of the court’s mandated deadline. 

We disagree. The district court’s March 2005 pretrial order

and the enforcement orders fit comfortably within the court’s

authority under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 2 and

16, and its more general inherent authority to manage its

docket. Although our decision in United States v. Hicks, 103

F.3d 837 (9th Cir. 1996), would suggest otherwise, we disapUNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 5649

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prove of Hicks’ reasoning and overrule it to the extent that it

conflicts with our decision today. Rather, we align ourselves

with the other circuit courts that, although not all relying on

a uniform source of authority, widely agree that a witness disclosure order directed to the government is within the district

court’s discretion to impose and enforce.7

[4] There is a “well established” principle that “[d]istrict

courts have inherent power to control their dockets.” Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Hercules Inc., 146 F.3d

1071, 1074 (9th Cir. 1998) (alteration in original) (internal

quotation marks omitted). Further, “judges exercise substantial discretion over what happens inside the courtroom.”

United States v. Simpson, 927 F.2d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir.

1991). We have accepted that “ ‘[a]ll federal courts are vested

with inherent powers enabling them to manage their cases and

courtrooms effectively and to ensure obedience to their

orders.’ ” Aloe Vera of Am., Inc. v. United States, 376 F.3d

960, 964-65 (9th Cir. 2004) (per curiam) (quoting F.J. Hanshaw Enters., Inc. v. Emerald River Dev., Inc., 244 F.3d 1128,

1136 (9th Cir. 2001)). 

Other circuits that have addressed a district court’s authority to require the government to disclose its witness list in

advance of trial have agreed that the court may do so. See

United States v. Cannone, 528 F.2d 296, 299 (2d Cir. 1975)

(“The general discretion of district courts to compel the government to identify its witnesses is acknowledged widely

. . . .”). Some have invoked the court’s “inherent power, exercisable under appropriate circumstances, to assure the proper

and orderly administration of criminal justice.” United States

v. Jackson, 508 F.2d 1001, 1007 (7th Cir. 1975); see United

States v. Napue, 834 F.2d 1311, 1318 (7th Cir. 1988) (“[A]

district court has the authority to require the government to

7We do not decide whether or to what extent the defense can be compelled to disclose a list of its witnesses before trial, and do not address

those issues here. 

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provide the defendant with such a list . . . . [as] part of the

court’s inherent power”) (internal quotation marks omitted);

United States v. Higgs, 713 F.2d 39, 44 n.6 (3d Cir. 1983)

(“While it is true that the government is not automatically

required to make such disclosure, the district court, within its

discretion, may order such disclosure to ensure the effective

administration of the criminal justice system.”) (citation omitted); Cannone, 528 F.2d at 298 (“It is recognized that wide

latitude is reposed in the district court to carry out successfully its mandate to effectuate, as far as possible, the speedy

and orderly administration of justice.”) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Others have not explained the source of

authority, but simply have stated that it is within a district

court’s discretion to order the government to produce a witness list under appropriate circumstances. See, e.g., United

States v. DeCoteau, 186 F.3d 1008, 1010 n.2 (8th Cir. 1999)

(“[A] district court in this circuit may exercise its discretion

to require such disclosure in a proper case.”) (internal quotation marks omitted); United States v. Rosales, 680 F.2d 1304,

1305 (10th Cir. 1981); United States v. Colson, 662 F.2d

1389, 1391 (11th Cir. 1981); United States v. Kendricks, 623

F.2d 1165, 1168 (6th Cir. 1980) (per curiam). Finally, some

have grounded the authority in Rule 16 itself, see, e.g., United

States v. Jordan, 466 F.2d 99, 101 (4th Cir. 1972), or in a

combination of Rule 16 and Rule 2, see United States v.

Fletcher, 74 F.3d 49, 54 (4th Cir. 1996). 

We first examine the rule-based approach. Rule 16 specifies categories of witnesses and documentary evidence that

are subject to mandatory pretrial disclosure. See Fed. R. Crim.

P. 16(a)(1) & (b)(1) (e.g., requiring the government to disclose at the defendant’s request a written summary of expert

testimony the government intends to use during its case-inchief). The rule also identifies kinds of information that are

not included in the mandatory disclosure categories. See Fed.

R. Crim. P. 16(a)(2) & (b)(2) (e.g., exempting government

investigative or prosecuting documents). With respect to the

district court’s authority, Rule 16(d)(1) permits the court, “for

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good cause, [to] deny, restrict, or defer discovery or inspection, or grant other appropriate relief,” and Rule 16(d)(2)

grants the court broad authority to enforce “this rule,” including by any order “that is just under the circumstances.” 

[5] Congress has thus addressed the kinds of information

the government and defendants are obligated to provide to

each other before trial by way of discovery and the district

court’s authority to enforce those obligations. Rule 2 bolsters

that authority by instructing that the rules “are to be interpreted to provide for the just determination of every criminal

proceeding, to secure simplicity in procedure and fairness in

administration, and to eliminate unjustifiable expense and

delay.” The thrust of Rule 16 — viewed in light of Rule 2 —

is to allow the district court to ensure that the parties comply

with the letter and spirit of the rule. Much of the government’s challenge to the district court’s orders here can be disposed of under the express provisions of Rule 16 — such as

the disclosure of scientific reports and expert witnesses,

which we shall discuss presently.8

Although Rule 16 does not expressly mandate the disclosure of nonexpert witnesses, it is not inconsistent with Rule

16 and Rule 2 for a court to order the government to produce

a list of such witnesses as a matter of its discretion. See

Fletcher, 74 F.3d at 54 (citing Rule 16 and Rule 2 in upholding an order for disclosure of witnesses); Jackson, 508 F.2d

at 1007 (citing Rule 2 in rejecting the government’s argument

that the district court’s authority to order it to disclose its witness list should be conditioned on the defense’s showing of

materiality and reasonableness). Above all, nothing in Rule 16

expressly prohibits the district court from ordering additional

pretrial discovery or disclosures that will also further the

objectives set forth in Rule 2. See Jackson, 508 F.2d at 1006

(stating that “the present [Rule 16] is no bar to the order”).

The Supreme Court has recognized that federal courts “may,

8

See Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(a)(1)(E)(ii), (a)(1)(F) & (a)(1)(G). 

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within limits, formulate procedural rules not specifically

required by the Constitution or the Congress.” United States

v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 505 (1983).9 Of course, “[w]hatever

the scope of this ‘inherent power,’ . . . it does not include the

power to develop rules that circumvent or conflict with the

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.” Carlisle v. United

States, 517 U.S. 416, 426 (1996); see Atchison, 146 F.3d at

1074 (“[D]istrict courts have inherent power to control their

dockets, but not when its exercise would nullify the procedural choices reserved to parties under the federal rules.”).

Ordering the pretrial disclosure of nonexpert witnesses does

not “circumvent or conflict” with Rule 16. Carlisle, 517 U.S.

at 426. The rule does not entitle the defendant to a list of such

witnesses, but by the same token it does not suggest that a district court is prohibited from ordering such a disclosure. See

9We have previously read Hasting as “limit[ing]” federal courts’ inherent powers to “three specific areas”: 

(1) to implement a remedy for a violation of recognized rights;

(2) to preserve judicial integrity by ensuring that a criminal conviction rests on appropriate considerations validly before the jury;

and (3) to deter future illegal conduct. 

United States v. Gonsalves, 781 F.2d 1319, 1320 (9th Cir. 1986); see also

United States v. Simpson, 927 F.2d 1088, 1090 (9th Cir. 1991). Here, the

government argues that because the district court’s order does not fall

within any of those “three specific areas,” the order is beyond the court’s

inherent powers. Our previous cases read Hasting too narrowly. There is

nothing in that opinion that “limit[s]” the inherent powers to these three

areas. The Supreme Court has, since Hasting, approved several exercises

of inherent power that are beyond the “three specific areas” we thought

Hasting delimited. E.g., Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 46 (1991)

(district courts have inherent power to punish bad-faith conduct by awarding attorneys’ fees to the other side); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 142,

146-47 (1985) (circuit courts have inherent power to establish a rule that

“the failure to file objections to the magistrate’s report waives the right to

appeal the district court’s judgment”). We therefore return to the understanding of inherent power that we recognized in United States v. Richter,

488 F.2d 170, 173-74 (9th Cir. 1973), according to which district courts

have the inherent power to “order the government to divulge names of

prospective witnesses.” 

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Jackson, 508 F.2d at 1006 (“[T]he Government fails to distinguish between the right of the defendant to demand a list of

witnesses, and the authority of the court to order such disclosure under the appropriate circumstances.”). 

[6] As noted earlier, some courts have found an affirmative

grant of authority to order the pretrial disclosure of all of the

government’s proposed witnesses in Rule 16’s enforcement

provisions (sometimes also invoking Rule 2). In doing so,

these decisions have elided the language of Rule 16(d)(1) and

(2) that appears to focus on enforcing the mandatory disclosure provisions of Rule 16 itself.10 We do not, however, have

to resolve whether Rule 16 alone or in combination with Rule

2 provides sufficient authority for the district court’s orders

regarding nonexpert witnesses. At the very least these rules do

not preclude such orders. Further, they reinforce the logic and

fairness of requiring the government to produce a pretrial witness list of both experts and nonexperts (subject to appropriate conditions) so that the parties — and the district court —

may be adequately prepared for trial. That is the essential

premise of the court’s inherent power to manage its cases to

ensure the fair and effective administration of the criminal

justice system. See United States v. Richter, 488 F.2d 170,

173-74 (9th Cir. 1973) (“It is recognized that wide latitude is

reposed in the district court to carry out successfully its mandate to effectuate, as far as possible, the speedy and orderly

administration of justice . . . . It would be ill-advised to limit

improvidently this inherent power for fear of misuse.”).11

10By its plain terms, Rule 16 speaks to specified kinds of discovery in

criminal cases, and its enforcement provisions parallel this specificity

rather than addressing the general authority of the court. Rule 16(d)(1)

refers to granting relief related to “discovery or inspection,” which is Rule

16’s title; and (d)(2) authorizes courts to take certain actions “if a party

fails to comply with this rule.” (Emphasis added.) But see, e.g., Fletcher,

74 F.3d at 54 (citing Rule 16 as granting authority to regulate discovery

broadly). 

11Richter predated the 1993 amendments to Rule 16, in which Congress

adopted provisions concerning expert witness disclosures. Notwithstand5654 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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Insofar as we held in Hicks that a district court has no

authority to order the government to produce a pretrial witness list beyond that specified in Rule 16, we now join our

sister circuits and hold to the contrary. See Hicks, 103 F.3d at

841. In retrospect, our decision did not correctly distinguish

between the mandatory disclosure requirements of Rule 16

and the district court’s discretionary authority to order pretrial

disclosures of government witnesses in appropriate circumstances. In Hicks, the district court had ordered the parties to

exchange witness lists and short summaries of anticipated witness testimony. Id. at 840. The defendant (not the government) objected, but eventually complied and appealed the

district court’s order, arguing that “the district court did not

have the authority under Rule 16 . . . to issue such an order.”

Id. We agreed, stating that a “district court that orders the

Government and the defendant to exchange witness lists and

summaries of anticipated witness testimony in advance of trial

has exceeded its authority under Rule 16 of the Federal Rules

of Criminal Procedure and has committed error.” Id. at 841

(emphasis added). To support this conclusion, Hicks relied on

Congress’ rejection in 1975 of a proposed amendment to Rule

16 that would have required both the government and the

defense to disclose their witnesses before trial. We inferred

from this rejection that Congress intended to deny a district

court any authority to order any pretrial witness disclosure

other than that expressly provided under Rule 16. See id. 

Inferring from the legislative history such a sweeping

denial of authority was not an inevitable conclusion. There

was no suggestion that Congress intended to bar district

courts from exercising their discretionary authority to order

pretrial discovery and disclosures from the government under

ing these amendments, we do not read Congress as precluding district

courts’ authority to regulate the discovery of nonexpert witnesses just

because Congress specifically adopted certain rules pertaining to expert

witness disclosures. The reasons for not limiting such authority are well

expressed in Richter, 488 F.2d at 173-74. 

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terms and conditions that courts normally use to manage the

fair and efficient conduct of trials. Rather, Congress was concerned that a mandatory disclosure rule would discourage

government witnesses from testifying and lead to witness

intimidation. See Napue, 834 F.2d at 1317 (“The conference

committee expressed concern that such a requirement would

discourage witnesses from testifying and would lead to

‘improper contact directed at influencing their testimony.’ ”)

(quoting H.R. Rep. No. 94-414, at 12 (1975) (Conf. Rep.),

reprinted in 1975 U.S.C.C.A.N. 713, 716). Congress said

nothing about the district court’s discretion to order such a

pretrial disclosure, subject to the court’s ability to tailor disclosures to specific concerns in a particular case, including the

use of protective orders. See, e.g., United States v. Fort, 472

F.3d 1106, 1131 (9th Cir. 2007). We therefore conclude that

Hicks adopted an overly broad reading of Rule 16 and unnecessarily restricted the district court’s discretionary authority to

order discovery from the prosecution. 

[7] In sum, we hold that a district court, consistent with

Rule 16 and Rule 2 and as part of the court’s inherent authority to manage its docket, may in appropriate circumstances

require the government to disclose a final list of its proposed

trial witnesses and has the authority to enforce such an order.

Hicks is overruled to the extent that it applied to such disclosures by the government. 

B. The District Court’s Exercise of its Authority 

The government contends that, even if the orders were

authorized, both the March 2005 order and the enforcement

orders were an abuse of the court’s discretion. We do not

agree. Although a district court’s discretion to order pretrial

discovery is not unfettered, the district court did not abuse its

discretion here. 

[8] We first address the court’s orders insofar as they concerned expert disclosures and scientific reports, the disclosure

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of which is governed by Rule 16(a). Subsections (a)(1)(G),

(a)(1)(E)(ii) and (a)(1)(F) of Rule 16 require the government

to disclose, at the defendant’s request, a summary of any

expert witness testimony the government intends to use during its case-in-chief at trial as well as “the bases and reasons

for those opinions”; documents within the government’s possession, custody or control that the government intends to use;

and certain scientific reports. The March 2005 case management order expressly implemented those provisions by requiring the timely disclosure of the government’s expert witnesses

and an expert report tailored to the issues on which each

expert is expected to testify. The December 2005 enforcement

order also clarified that expert disclosures must identify the

documents or information that the expert reviewed in preparing his or her report, a condition well within Rule 16’s

requirement that expert disclosures describe “the bases and

reasons for those opinions.” The district court’s orders imposing and enforcing these expert witness disclosures were

clearly within its Rule 16 authority and not an abuse of its discretion. 

Next, as to both expert and nonexpert witnesses, the government argues that requiring it to disclose its final list of witnesses a year before trial was unreasonable and that the

district court’s exclusion of witnesses and reports not disclosed by December 5, 2005 was an inappropriate sanction.

We reject the government’s objections for several reasons. 

[9] First, the district court’s March 2005 order set a relatively early deadline for the government to provide a final

witness list in advance of the then-scheduled September 2006

trial. The record reflects that the court had good reason to

impose such a deadline, however; the court believed that the

deadline would bring the necessary focus and organization to

ready the case for trial. The charged conspiracy reaches back

nearly 30 years, the government now proposes to call more

than 200 witnesses, there are many defendants and allegations, and millions of pages of documents have been produced

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during discovery. Such a complex case poses special challenges to the parties in preparing for trial and to the court in

managing the litigation. Moreover, the government itself had

initially suggested a September 2005 trial date, indicating to

the district court that the government could be prepared for

trial by then. When asked in the March 2005 status conference whether the government could make its expert disclosures by the end of September, the prosecutor responded,

“[t]hat would be good,” and when asked about a finalized list

of witnesses and trial exhibits by the end of September, he

said he “d[id]n’t have a problem with that.” The government

also did not object to the disclosure deadlines set by the

March 2005 order. Rather, when it filed its supposed “final”

list in September 2005 it simply and unilaterally reserved its

“right” to supplement the list up to the time of trial. Given the

size and complexity of the case and the government’s acquiescence in the dates for final witness and document disclosures, the district court’s March 2005 order was reasonable

and not an abuse of discretion.12

Second, the government mischaracterizes the enforcement

orders as an exclusionary “sanction.” The enforcement orders

were not imposed as a sanction; they simply enforce the earlier pretrial order requiring the timely identification of trial

witnesses and documentary evidence. In March 2005, when

the government told the court it was prepared to try the case

that September, the government estimated it would be calling

60 to 80 witnesses; by the time it filed its witness list on September 30, the number of witnesses had grown to 233 and

counting. At the December 2005 status hearing, the district

court rejected the government’s arguments for expanding the

list further, finding that the government “cannot now credibly

claim that it is necessary to continue adding witnesses to an

already unwieldy list.” Accordingly, it ruled that “the govern12Notably, the district court did not take a rigid approach, effectively

converting the September 30 deadline to a December 5 deadline by virtue

of the December 2005 order. 

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ment’s presentation at trial will be limited to those witnesses

that have been disclosed as of the filing of this Order [i.e.,

December 5, 2005],” later clarifying in the February 2006

order that this limitation applied only to the government’s

case-in-chief, not to rebuttal witnesses. Given the many discussions the court had with counsel about the fluid nature of

the government’s evolving case and the court’s expressed

concerns that the government seemed unable to get its trial

preparation under control, it could hardly have been a surprise

that the court froze the witness list when and as it did. 

Third, even if we were to view the enforcement orders as

a sanction, they still would not be an abuse of the court’s discretion. At the outset, we emphasize that we are addressing

only the preclusive effect of the enforcement orders as they

currently stand because, apart from this interlocutory appeal,

the government has thus far sought no relief from the district

court’s orders with respect to any particular excluded witness.

We do not know whether the district court would be persuaded to allow the government to add or substitute one or

more new witnesses for good cause. See, e.g., D. Mont. R. 7.3

(permitting a party to seek relief from the district court if it

finds new evidence and can demonstrate good cause). Nonetheless, the government relies on United States v. Finley, 301

F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 2002), for the proposition that the exclusion of witnesses can be imposed as a sanction only when the

district court finds the violation of a disclosure order was

“willful and motivated by a desire to obtain a tactical advantage.” Id. at 1018 (quoting Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400,

415 (1988)). Because the district court made no such findings

in this case, the government contends the exclusion orders

cannot stand. Finley, however, like Taylor, involved a defendant’s right to present evidence, not the government’s, and

has no bearing here. See Finley, 301 F.3d at 1018 (“Because

the Supreme Court has recognized that ‘[f]ew rights are more

fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in

his own defense,’ Taylor, 484 U.S. at 408, courts should use

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particular caution in applying the drastic remedy of excluding

a witness altogether.”). 

Finally, the government argues that even if a court can

legitimately compel the government to disclose its witness

list, it cannot force the government to finalize that list on penalty of exclusion of later discovered witnesses, particularly a

year before trial. Relying on United States v. Gatto, 763 F.2d

1040, 1046 (9th Cir. 1985), it contends the district court’s

orders violated the separation of powers principle by improperly commandeering the government’s investigatory and prosecutorial functions. Of course, the orders did no such thing

— as we have discussed, they dealt with managing the proceedings inside the courtroom, not with the government’s performance of its prosecutorial duties outside the courtroom.

The government’s discretion to investigate and present its

case does not override the district court’s authority to manage

the trial proceedings — including by setting discovery and

disclosure deadlines — and Gatto does not hold otherwise.13

The government’s reliance on Gatto is misplaced. That

case involved a district court order requiring the government

to provide discovery in accordance with Rule 16. Four weeks

before trial and well after the discovery disclosure deadline

had passed, the government belatedly learned that cooperating

state officials had relevant documents that should have been

produced to the defendants. Invoking its authority under both

Rule 16(d)(2) and the court’s inherent supervisory power, the

district court precluded use of the evidence during the govern13Although Gatto has been bemoaned as “lay[ing] down an inflexible

rule — the government has an absolute right to call its lately acquired witness whatever the consequences to the administration of justice in other

respects,” United States v. Schwartz, 857 F.2d 655, 660 (9th Cir. 1988)

(Hupp, J., concurring), we disavow that it did create such an “absolute

rule,” as we explain in text. As the majority in Schwartz itself recognized,

a district court may exclude documents or witnesses for failure to comply

with the court’s pretrial or discovery orders. See Schwartz, 857 F.2d at

659. 

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ment’s case in-chief. Id. at 1043. On the government’s § 3731

appeal, we held that the court lacked authority under either its

supervisory power or Rule 16. As to the former, we emphasized that the government’s delay in disclosure had not violated “any constitutional provision, federal statute, specific

discovery order, or any other recognized right except perhaps

[R]ule 16.” Id. at 1046. There was no need to resort to the

court’s inherent supervisory power to create any other remedy

for a violation of Rule 16 because the rule itself contains specific remedies for its violation. See id. As to Rule 16, we

expressly held that the government’s failure to disclose the

documents earlier did not violate the rule because the stateheld documents were not in the government’s actual possession. Id. at 1049. 

Unlike Gatto, here the government would violate Rule 16

if it were to call expert witnesses who were not timely disclosed. Therefore, the district court may properly rely on its

Rule 16 authority where appropriate to enforce its orders. As

to the disclosures not mandated by Rule 16, the court has

inherent authority to enforce its specific discovery order,

which the government would violate if it were to call undisclosed nonexpert witnesses. First, with respect to the expert

disclosures, the district court’s March 2005 order was well

within the bounds of Rule 16, as we have already discussed.

The government did not object to the order, but instead

reserved to itself a right to supplement its disclosures through

the close of evidence at trial. The district court had the authority under Rule 16(d)(2) to reject this unilateral reservation of

rights and enforce the discovery requirements mandated by

the rule; it did not need to resort to its inherent authority. Second, as to the March 2005 order’s mandate to disclose nonexpert witnesses, who do not come within the express terms of

Rule 16, nothing in Gatto — or in Rule 16 itself, as we have

discussed in Section III(A) — precludes a district court from

relying on its inherent authority to order such witness disclosures or to enforce its order. As Gatto expressly noted, the

government had not violated “any . . . specific discovery

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order.” Id. at 1046. Here there was such an order, and if it is

violated, the district court may exclude evidence as a sanction. Although there are limits to the district court’s inherent

authority, the district court here is well within its authority to

manage its docket in enforcing a valid pretrial discovery

order. See United States v. Talbot, 51 F.3d 183, 187-88 & n.5

(9th Cir. 1995)(distinguishing Gatto and upholding exclusion

of government witnesses for violation of pretrial disclosure

order). 

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, we hold that the United States Attorney’s

§ 3731 certification to the district court sufficed to invoke our

appellate jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal. We further hold that the district court had authority to order and

enforce the pretrial disclosures of government witnesses and

evidentiary documents and that the district court did not abuse

its discretion in doing so here. Should the government seek

leave to add a specific witness or report it believes is foreclosed by the district court’s pretrial orders, we leave it to the

district court to address the request in accordance with the

principles we have set forth in this opinion. 

AFFIRMED.

HAWKINS, Circuit Judge, with whom PREGERSON and

WARDLAW, Circuit Judges, join, concurring as to Part III,

and concurring in the judgment: 

We face two closely related issues, both dealing with the

ability of district judges to manage complex criminal trials.

One is whether a district judge may order the government to

provide a final witness list prior to the beginning of trial. This

one the Opinion gets absolutely right, holding that the interests of trial continuity outweigh any interest in withholding

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those names and disclosing them only when the prosecution

deems it appropriate. The other is whether the prosecution can

delay a trial and require an interlocutory appeal on an evidentiary ruling on nothing more than its say so. By my lights, the

Opinion not only gets this one wrong, but also creates along

the way what our colleague Judge Goodwin describes as a

“hazard to navigation” to the efficient and evenhanded administration of justice in our trial courts. 

For the following reasons, I respectfully part from the portion of the Opinion dealing with 18 U.S.C. § 3731. 

I. Statutory Text

According to the majority, the plain language of § 3731

precludes this court from exercising any independent judgment over its own jurisdiction. I disagree. 

The second paragraph of § 3731 provides: 

An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of

appeals from a decision or order of a district court

suppressing or excluding evidence or requiring the

return of seized property in a criminal proceeding,

not made after the defendant has been put in jeopardy and before the verdict or finding on an indictment or information, if the United States attorney

certifies to the district court that the appeal is not

taken for purpose of delay and that the evidence is

a substantial proof of a fact material in the proceeding. 

Reading this, the majority believes that it is evident from

the statute’s phrasing that the courts of appeals are forbidden

from applying even the most modest scrutiny to the United

States Attorney’s certification. On my reading, the statute is

ambiguous and nothing in the text compels the majority’s

interpretation. 

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We begin with a straightforward proposition: Congress not

only knows how to tell courts of appeals to defer completely

to the United States Attorney, it has done just that in the confines of a remarkably similar certification statute. Under the

Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679, when a federal employee is

sued for a wrongful or negligent act, the United States is to

be substituted as the party defendant “[u]pon certification by

the Attorney General that the defendant employee was acting

within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the

incident out of which the claim arose.” Id. § 2679(d)(1). A

separate subsection of the same Act provides that a suit commenced in state court shall be removed to federal court upon

the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment certification,

and that “[t]his certification of the Attorney General shall

conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal.” Id. § 2679(d)(2) (emphasis added). Importantly, there is no similar provision in § 2679(d)(1); Congress

never stated that the Attorney General’s certification would be

conclusive for the substitution inquiry. 

The Supreme Court has considered both the removal and

substitution subsections of the Westfall Act. Interpreting the

removal provision, the Court explained that “Congress gave

district courts no authority to return cases to state courts on

the ground that the Attorney General’s certification was

unwarranted. . . . For purposes of establishing a forum to

adjudicate the case . . . § 2679(d)(2) renders the Attorney

General’s certification dispositive.” Osborn v. Haley, 127

S. Ct. 881, 894 (2007). This reading makes perfect textual

sense, for if it were “open to a district court to remand a

removed action on the ground that the Attorney General’s certification was erroneous, the final instruction in § 2679(d)(2)

would be weightless. The Attorney General’s certification

would not ‘conclusively establish scope of office or employment’ for either trial or removal.” Id. at 895. 

By contrast, the Supreme Court has held that the scope-ofemployment certification under § 2679(d)(1)—the substitu5664 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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tion provision—is reviewable. Gutierrez de Martinez v.

Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 434 (1995). As a matter of syntax,

§ 2679(d)(1) cannot be meaningfully distinguished from

§ 3731. That section of the Westfall Act provides, in full: 

Upon certification by the Attorney General that the

defendant employee was acting within the scope of

his office or employment at the time of the incident

out of which the claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such claim in a United

States district court shall be deemed an action

against the United States under the provisions of this

title and all references thereto, and the United States

shall be substituted as the party defendant. 

28 U.S.C. § 2679(d)(1) (emphasis added). 

In Gutierrez de Martinez, the Supreme Court framed “[t]he

sole question . . . [as] who decides on which side of the

[scope-of-employment] line the case falls: the local United

States Attorney, unreviewably or, when that official’s decision is contested, the court.”

1

 515 U.S. at 423-24. Unlike the

majority in the present case, the Court did not hold that the

phrase “[u]pon certification by the Attorney General,” or the

word “shall,”

2

 made evident Congress’s intent to preclude

1The local United States Attorney was acting on behalf of the Attorney

General. 515 U.S. at 421. 

2The majority emphasizes the word “shall” in § 3731, suggesting, I take

it, that we must exercise jurisdiction if the United States Attorney certifies

the necessary facts. As a textual matter, the word provides very little guidance, even aside from the reality that “legal writers sometimes use, or misuse, ‘shall’ to mean ‘should,’ ‘will,’ or even ‘may.’ ” Gutierrez de

Martinez, 515 U.S. at 432 n.9; see also id. at 433 n.9 (noting that Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 16(e) and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure

11(b) “use the word ‘shall’ to authorize, but not to require, judicial

action”). I agree that we have no discretion to decline jurisdiction if the

United States Attorney’s certification obligation is satisfied. I dispute only

the nature of that obligation, which is a question upon which the word

“shall” has no bearing. 

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courts from looking beyond the Attorney General’s naked certification. Instead, the Court believed that “Congress did not

address this precise issue unambiguously, if at all . . . . [T]he

Westfall Act is, on the ‘who decides’ question we confront,

open to divergent interpretation.”

3

Id. at 424. 

Where the Supreme Court perceived “statutory fog,” id. at

425, the majority finds congressional intent that “has been

expressed in reasonably plain terms.” We are told that

“[n]othing in the statute requires the government to go further

and prove that the evidence suppressed or excluded by the

district court is actually material to the proceeding before our

jurisdiction can attach.” A fair point, but not one that establishes the statute is unambiguous. Using the same reasoning,

it seems clear that nothing in the statute prohibits the court

from examining the United States Attorney’s certification. 

The majority finds guidance in the portion of § 3731 that

reads, “The provisions of [§ 3731] shall be liberally construed

to effectuate its purposes.” Congress did not explicitly state its

purposes, so this provision invites some question-begging.4

3

I rely on Gutierrez de Martinez only for my textual analysis. Although

the case resulted in the outcome I argue for here, the contrast between the

Westfall Act and § 3731 precludes me from suggesting that the Supreme

Court resolved our ultimate inquiry. For example, in Gutierrez de Martinez, the Attorney General’s certification would have led to an automatic

dismissal of the case on sovereign immunity grounds, and “when a Government official’s determination of a fact or circumstance—for example,

‘scope of employment’—is dispositive of a court controversy, federal

courts generally do not hold the determination unreviewable.” Gutierrez

de Martinez, 515 U.S. at 424. And, as discussed, the inclusion of the word

“conclusively” with respect to removal, and its absence with respect to the

substitution issue, provided strong textual evidence that the latter was

reviewable. See id. at 432; see also Osborn v. Haley, 127 S. Ct. 881, 895

(2007). Additionally, the court looked to the particular and unique impetus

that led to adoption of the Westfall Act. 515 U.S. at 425-26. That legislative backdrop does not apply here. 

4The majority wisely ignores the government’s invocation of United

States v. Wilson, which held that § 3731 was “intended to remove all statu5666 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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The majority posits that “[t]he purpose of § 3731 is to give the

government a window of opportunity to challenge a district

court’s exclusion of allegedly material evidence before jeopardy attaches; we should not, therefore, read into the statute

an unwritten additional hurdle, even if well intentioned.” 

This reading distorts Congress’s intent. The majority’s

description would be accurate if there were no certification

requirement in the statute. But that requirement exists, and it

undoubtedly reflects Congress’s concern that the government

might abuse its appellate rights. Indeed, the majority recognizes that “[b]y specifying that the United States Attorney

must certify the appeal, Congress plainly intended that the

decision to take an interlocutory appeal be a serious, considered judgment, not simply an administrative formality.” 

Deterring frivolous appeals is as much of a statutory purpose as enabling worthy ones, and the Loud Hawk rule liberally construes the certification requirement to effectuate both

purposes. Far from being unwritten hurdles, the jurisdictional

conditions identified by Loud Hawk are drawn straight from

§ 3731’s text. The majority, however, appears content to liberally construe the first half of the paragraph, while strictly

construing the second half. 

Interestingly, of the three jurisdiction-conferring provisions

of § 3731, only the one at issue in this case requires the government to certify facts to the district court.5

 This suggests

tory barriers to Government appeals and to allow appeals whenever the

Constitution would permit.” 420 U.S. 332, 337 (1975). The government

fails to appreciate that Wilson dealt with an entirely separate and independent portion of § 3731 that enables the prosecution to appeal, in a criminal

case, “a decision, judgment, or order of a district court dismissing an

indictment or information or granting a new trial after verdict or judgment.” The Wilson Court’s conclusion that Congress intended to “allow

appeals whenever the Constitution would permit” rested on legislative history that applied exclusively to this paragraph of § 3731. See id. at 337-39.

5The provision that concerns us in this case is found in the second paragraph of § 3731. The first and third paragraphs of this section read in full:

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Congress was especially concerned that federal prosecutors

might abuse the ability to interlocutorily appeal suppression

orders,6 thereby unnecessarily disrupting proceedings, and

that certification was supposed to act as a meaningful check.

While it is possible that Congress decided to counter potential

prosecutorial abuse by requiring an unreviewable, boilerplate

certification by the prosecution alone, the text of § 3731 does

not unambiguously express this intent. 

II. Legislative History

Where the statutory language is ambiguous, we “turn to the

legislative history for evidence of congressional intent.” Dent

v. Cox Commc’ns Las Vegas, Inc., 502 F.3d 1141, 1145 (9th

Cir. 2007). Although the legislative history fails to directly

resolve the question presented here, it does shed some light on

Congress’s purpose in adopting § 3731’s second paragraph. 

The second paragraph was adopted, with slightly different

In a criminal case an appeal by the United States shall lie to a

court of appeals from a decision, judgment, or order of a district

court dismissing an indictment or information or granting a new

trial after verdict or judgment, as to any one or more counts, or

any part thereof, except that no appeal shall lie where the double

jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution prohibits further

prosecution. 

. . . . 

An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of appeals from

a decision or order, entered by a district court of the United

States, granting the release of a person charged with or convicted

of an offense, or denying a motion for revocation of, or modification of the conditions of, a decision or order granting release. 

6For stylistic purposes, I will rely on “suppression orders,” “suppressing

evidence,” and like phrases as shorthand for an “order of a district court

suppressing or excluding evidence or requiring the return of seized property in a criminal proceeding.” 

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language,7

 as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe

Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-351, tit. VIII, § 1301(a),

82 Stat. 197, 237-38. The original Senate and House bills did

not contain the provision; it was proposed as an amendment

to the Senate bill by Senator Allott of Colorado. United States

v. Greely, 413 F.2d 1103, 1104 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1969) (per

curiam); 114 Cong. Rec. 14787, 14787-89 (1968). The

amendment was identical to a previously-passed House bill,

H.R. 8654, 90th Cong. (1967). Senator Allott’s remarks and

the report accompanying H.R. 8654 reveal three concerns

addressed by the provision. 

First, the legislation was designed to facilitate successful

prosecutions by granting the government an opportunity to

challenge the suppression of important evidence. Senator

Allott hoped that “our law-enforcement agencies will be given

the tools with which to launch a meaningful attack on the critical problem of crime in this country,” and he explained that

“[i]t is obviously much better to prove a case with tangible

and concrete evidence than upon oral testimony and observa7The original language of the certification requirement provided that the

United States Attorney was to certify “ ‘to the judge who granted such

motion that the appeal is not taken for purpose of delay and that the evidence is a substantial proof of the charge pending against the defendant.’ ”

See United States v. Greely, 413 F.2d 1103, 1104 (D.C. Cir. 1969) (per

curiam). The requirement was amended to its current form in 1971 as part

of the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-644, tit. III,

84 Stat. 1880, 1890 (1971). Although the 1971 amendment slightly altered

the language of the certification requirement, the primary purpose of

amending the suppression order paragraph was to make “the Government’s right to appeal an order suppressing evidence applicable to all

criminal proceedings, including probation revocation hearings, not merely

to pretrial suppressions.” S. Rep. No. 91-1296, at 2 (1970); see also

United States v. Hines, 419 F.2d 173, 174-5 (10th Cir. 1969) (holding that

the government’s right to appeal under the 1968 statute did not apply to

probation revocation hearings). One final amendment to the now-second

paragraph corrected a grammatical error. Violent Crime Control and Law

Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-322, tit. XXXIII, § 330008(4),

108 Stat. 1796, 2142. 

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tion of witnesses.” 114 Cong. Rec. at 14788 (statement of

Sen. Allott). The House report noted that an order granting a

motion to suppress evidence is often “in effect, a final order

bringing the prosecution to an end, for the Government is

unable to proceed without the suppressed evidence.” H.R.

Rep. No. 90-603, at 2 (1967). 

Second, the provision was intended to lead to “the development of a complete body of law regarding the legality of

searches and seizures presently hampered by the inability of

the Government to bring to the appellate courts significant

cases” arising out of suppression orders. Id. at 3. “[T]he law

of search and seizure and confessions [was] highly uncertain,”

and the amendment would ameliorate that uncertainty. 114

Cong. Rec. at 14788 (statement of Sen. Allott) (internal quotation marks omitted). In United States v. Dior, we recognized

this concern, noting that the “the overriding purpose of the

provision permitting immediate government appeals from

suppression orders was to deal with the harm which the lack

of government appeals worked on the development of the law

of suppression.” 671 F.2d 351, 356 (9th Cir. 1982). 

These two goals were not to come at the expense of a criminal defendant’s rights. A report authored by the President’s

Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, cited favorably by Senator Allott, stated that “[w]here the

prosecution is permitted to appeal from pretrial orders, rules

should be established to protect the defendant’s interest in

obtaining a speedy trial.” 114 Cong. Rec. at 14789. The Commission admonished the government that “appeals should not

be taken routinely from every adverse pretrial ruling. They

should be reserved for cases in which there is a substantial

law enforcement interest.” Id. The House Committee on the

Judiciary stressed that the “rights of the defendants, of course,

have been taken into consideration and are in no way

impinged upon” by the bill. H.R. Rep. No. 90-603, at 3. The

provision required the prosecution to pursue appeals within

thirty days of the district court’s decision and to prosecute

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them “diligently.”

8

 The courts of appeals were expected to

dispose of these appeals “with despatch so that the interest of

justice, both on the part of the defendant and the Government,

will be met as quickly as possible.” Id.

There is nothing in the legislative history that speaks

directly to the propriety of courts reviewing the United States

Attorney’s certification. By revealing Congress’s concerns,

however, the history guides us in our efforts to liberally construe the statute in order to effectuate all of its purposes. 

III. Proper Interpretation of § 3731

The legislative history confirms that Congress was not concerned exclusively with facilitating successful prosecutions;

rather, Congress was also eager to see the courts develop a

coherent body of search and seizure law, and was solicitous

of defendants’ rights. It is these latter goals that inform our

understanding of the certification requirement. 

There is no dispute that the government is forbidden from

appealing for the purpose of delay or from an order suppressing evidence that is insubstantial or immaterial, and Loud

Hawk does not modify those substantive conditions. The precise question before us concerns the procedure by which Congress chose to enforce these restrictions: How, in other words,

does the certification requirement impact our ability to ensure

that the government is complying with the jurisdictional conditions? 

If the same conditions were present without a certification

requirement, we would presumably have the authority and

duty to ensure that they were satisfied. See Arbaugh v. Y&H

Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006) (stating that courts “have an

8The fourth paragraph of § 3731 provides: “The appeal in all such cases

shall be taken within thirty days after the decision, judgment or order has

been rendered and shall be diligently prosecuted.” 

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independent obligation to determine whether subject-matter

jurisdiction exists, even in the absence of a challenge from

any party”). If, for example, the government violated the

fourth paragraph of § 3731 by filing its notice of appeal more

than thirty days after the pertinent order, this court would consider dismissing the appeal, even though the statute does not

expressly grant us the right to independently review the timeliness of the filing. See, e.g., United States v. Belgarde, 300

F.3d 1177, 1180 (9th Cir. 2002) (considering timeliness of

§ 3731 filing); United States v. Shaffer, 789 F.2d 682, 686 n.3

(9th Cir. 1986) (same). 

Given this presumptive ability to determine our own jurisdiction, the majority must have concluded that the second

paragraph of § 3731 not only expressly imposes an obligation

on the United States Attorney, but also silently strips this

court of its authority to review jurisdictional facts. We are not,

however, told why Congress would wish to take the highly

unusual step of precluding us from independently reviewing

our jurisdiction. 

Section 3731 serves a gatekeeping function by balancing

the prosecution’s desire to appeal suppression orders with the

defense’s and court’s interest in a prompt and orderly trial.

Congress may have tasked prosecutors with reviewing potential interlocutory appeals in the first instance, but experience

with certification provisions in two other significant contexts

suggests that Congress did not intend to wholly outsource our

jurisdictional inquiry. 

In civil actions, courts of appeals may entertain an interlocutory appeal from a non-final district court order if the district

judge certifies that he is “of the opinion that such order

involves a controlling question of law as to which there is

substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The

certification “serves the dual purpose of ensuring that [appel5672 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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late] review will be confined to appropriate cases and avoiding time-consuming jurisdictional determinations in the court

of appeals.” Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463,

474-75 (1978). Importantly, though, once the district judge

opens the gate to this court, we exercise complete, undeferential review to determine whether the court properly found that

§ 1292(b)’s certification requirements were satisfied. James v.

Price Stern Sloan, Inc., 283 F.3d 1064, 1068 n.6 (9th Cir.

2002); In re Cement Antitrust Litig., 673 F.2d 1020, 1026 (9th

Cir. 1982). Only the district judge’s decision to deny certification escapes our scrutiny. Executive Software N. Am., Inc. v.

U.S. Dist. Court, 24 F.3d 1545, 1550 (9th Cir. 1994); Oppenheimer v. L.A. County Flood Control Dist., 453 F.2d 895 (9th

Cir. 1972) (per curiam). 

Our review of a district court’s decision to grant or deny a

habeas corpus petitioner’s request for a Certificate of

Appealability (“COA”) is even broader. “In federal habeas

corpus proceedings, . . . the exercise of appellate jurisdiction

is dependent entirely upon the issuance of a COA.” Phelps v.

Alameda, 366 F.3d 722, 726 (9th Cir. 2004); see also 28

U.S.C. § 2253(c). When a district judge or motions panel

grants one, a court of appeals merits panel is not irrevocably

vested with jurisdiction over the appeal. In Phelps v. Alameda, we held that “COAs are not beyond merits panel scrutiny”; after one is granted, we retain the “power to vacate or to

contract it.” 366 F.3d at 727, 728. In fashioning this rule, the

Phelps court acknowledged that “we must be ever mindful of

the gatekeeping and efficiency functions of the certificate of

appealability.” Id. at 728 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Nevertheless, the court explained, “the pursuit of efficiency

alone does not support an absolute bar against examining the

validity of a COA.” Id. And, in contrast to § 1292(b) certification denials, when a district court denies a COA, we review

its determination upon the petitioner’s request. See, e.g.,

Stokes v. Schriro, 465 F.3d 397, 401 (9th Cir. 2006). 

These two examples show the remarkable nature of the

majority’s ruling. In two core areas of our jurisdiction, ConUNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 5673

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gress has employed the device of certification to assist us in—

without eliminating—our determination of jurisdictional conditions. Without explanation as to why Congress would desire

such a result, the majority tells us that a prosecutor deserves

much greater deference than district judges tasked with analogous gatekeeper-like responsibilities. This simply does not

square with the notion that the decision to exercise jurisdiction, is, at bottom, a judicial, not a prosecutorial, function. 

This paradox is puzzling when one conceives of the § 3731

certification requirement as a gatekeeping device, but it

becomes troubling when the certification is viewed as admonitory in nature. 

Certifications are formalities, and in some contexts they

may “perform a cautionary or deterrent function by acting as

a check against inconsiderate action.” Lon L. Fuller, Consideration and Form, 41 Colum. L. Rev. 799, 800 (1941). Parties

in the federal courts are familiar with certification requirements that serve a cautionary function. Under Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 11, attorneys must sign the filings they submit to the district court, and, upon filing, the attorneys certify

that the papers are not being filed for an improper purpose,

such as to harass or cause delay; that legal contentions are

supported by existing law or by nonfrivolous arguments to

alter existing law; that factual contentions have or are likely

to have evidentiary support; and that denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence, belief, or lack of

information. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(a), (b). At the appellate level,

attorneys’ briefs are subject to specific type-volume limitations, Fed. R. App. P. 28.1(e)(2), 32(a)(7)(B), and they must

contain a Certificate of Compliance that attests that the brief

adheres to the applicable limitations, Fed. R. App. P.

32(a)(7)(C). 

These certifications do not serve a gatekeeper function, and

they are not a means of presenting the courts with useful

information. They serve a much more basic purpose: remind5674 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE

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ing the parties of their obligation to comply with the courts’

rules. See, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 advisory committee’s note

(“The rule continues to require litigants to ‘stop-and-think’

before initially making legal or factual contentions.”). It goes

without saying that we give no weight to such certifications

when determining whether the attorneys have committed any

sanctionable violations; the attorneys’ self-interest makes the

certification inherently untrustworthy. 

The certification requirement in § 3731 serves a purpose

similar to these rules. It provides a forceful reminder to federal prosecutors that “Congress recognized the importance of

minimizing appellate interference in the trial process,” United

States v. Dior, 671 F.2d 351, 356 (9th Cir. 1982), and that the

government is to take seriously its obligation to respect defendants’ rights. By doing so, it implicitly recognizes that United

States Attorneys are biased participants in criminal prosecutions. In the same way that most private attorneys would realize, in the absence of Rule 11’s signing and certification

requirement, that it is improper to pursue legal claims in order

to harass an opponent, few prosecutors needed § 3731 to

inform them that it is improper to file an appeal for the purpose of delay or to disrupt proceedings over an unimportant

piece of evidence. The certification requirements exist in both

instances not simply to describe the regulations, but to put the

parties on notice that Congress and the courts take seriously

the choices attorneys make. 

Given Congress’s clearly expressed concern over the

potential for prosecutors to abuse their appellate rights, it is

hard to believe that the statute requires us to blindly trust

United States Attorneys or those who supervise them.9 The

9While I have great respect for the author of the Opinion and his distinguished prior service as a senior Department of Justice official, I wonder

if recent experience might suggest that the comfort he finds in the supervision of Main Justice officials over the activities of United States Attorneys

might not always be well placed. See John McKay, Train Wreck At the

Justice Department: An Eyewitness Account, 31 Seattle U. L. Rev. 265

(2008). 

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men and women of the Department of Justice are fine public

servants, dedicated to advancing the public interest. Nevertheless, Congress’s recognition of prosecutors’ self-interest is

inherent in § 3731, and we would be unfaithful to congressional intent if we repudiated that recognition when construing

the statute. 

By my lights, the Loud Hawk rule more effectively

advances the statutory goals than the majority’s approach. For

starters, the Loud Hawk rule is modest. Section 3731 provides

that the government may only appeal the suppression of evidence that “is a substantial proof of a fact material in the proceeding.” In United States v. Adrian, we held that “we will

find the government to have satisfied this additional jurisdictional requirement if, assuming that the evidence would be

admissible, a reasonable trier of fact could find the evidence

persuasive in establishing the proposition for which the government seeks to admit it.” 978 F.2d 486, 491 (9th Cir. 1992)

(emphasis added). Adrian explicitly rejected an interpretation

that would “require the government to demonstrate that the

evidence is highly probative.” Id.

The burden on the prosecution is thus slight, and this

should allay any fear that Loud Hawk might undermine the

first identifiable purpose of the statute, the facilitation of successful prosecutions. Prosecutors pursuing worthy appeals

have little to fear from our precedents. Certifying the § 3731

requirements presents little administrative inconvenience, and

a prosecutor actively involved in the case should have no difficulty making the necessary showing to the court. In fact, the

majority’s rule and the Loud Hawk rule would lead to divergent results only in those cases in which the government is

appealing for the purpose of delay, or challenging the suppression of immaterial or insubstantial evidence. The

approach the majority adopts today will allow such appeals to

proceed, although this appears to contravene Congress’s clear

intent. 

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Congress also hoped that § 3731 would yield a welldeveloped body of search-and-seizure jurisprudence. The

Loud Hawk rule furthers this goal in two ways. First, it keeps

the government honest by ensuring that prosecutors do not

take appeals from the suppression of immaterial or insubstantial evidence in order to establish favorable law. As repeat

players in the federal courts, prosecutors have an incentive to

take the long-term view. When an opportunity to make seemingly “good law” comes along, there will be a temptation to

pursue it even if it will have little impact on the case in which

a prosecutor is currently involved. For example, if the district

court suppresses some trivial evidence that the prosecutor

feels is unnecessary in that particular prosecution, she may

appeal anyway if the facts are such that she has the chance to

have the courts of appeals announce a government-friendly

rule of law.10

Additionally, the Loud Hawk rule favors the development

of the law by enabling the courts of appeals to gain a better

understanding of the facts of appealed cases. Interlocutory

appeals from suppression orders are typically taken before

trial, and the record is therefore necessarily limited. This

means that a panel could be tasked with making new law in

a near factual vacuum. The law develops most properly when

judges can evaluate all facts relevant to a case, and not just

those that pertain to some discrete issue. Under Loud Hawk,

this court gains familiarity with the case by assessing whether

the excluded evidence is a substantial proof of a fact material

in the proceeding. The government will explain why the evidence is meaningful in light of the larger evidentiary picture,

and the defense has the opportunity to contest that explanation. By the time jurisdiction is established, the judges will

10That the government chooses its appeals with care is not mere speculation. Rather, it is the raison d’etre of the policy that requires federal government lawyers to obtain approval from the Office of the United States

Solicitor General before appealing. See FEC v. NRA Political Victory

Fund, 513 U.S. 88, 96 (1994). 

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have a greater sense of what the case is about and the consequences of their potential rulings. 

The Loud Hawk rule also accommodates the statute’s final

purpose, protecting defendants’ rights. The majority finds

comfort in its aspirational rhetoric; my colleagues “expect the

concerns about frivolous or disruptive attempts to involve us

prematurely in ongoing trial proceedings . . . will be

addressed by the government’s wise and careful invocation of

§ 3731 appeals.” Our experience belies this optimism. We

have noted that, “[u]nfortunately, some government attorneys

from time to time treat the § 3731 certification requirement as

a mere formality and even neglect to file the certification in

a timely manner.” United States v. Gantt, 194 F.3d 987, 997

(9th Cir. 1999); see id. at 997 & n.4 (citing cases from this

and other circuits); cf. United States v. Kojayan, 8 F.3d 1315,

1324 (9th Cir. 1993) (stating that “[t]he overwhelming majority of prosecutors are decent, ethical, honorable lawyers who

understand the awesome power they wield, and the responsibility that goes with it. But the temptation is always there: It’s

the easiest thing in the world for people trained in the adversarial ethic to think a prosecutor’s job is simply to win”; citing cases in support). 

If Congress had explicitly made the United States Attorneys’ certifications conclusive, as it did for the scope-ofemployment certifications under the Westfall Act when

removal was at issue, I would concede that the court would

be left with no choice but to place our faith in the executive

branch. As it currently reads, however, § 3731 places no such

restrictions on our jurisdictional review. Loud Hawk correctly

demands that we respect our jurisdictional limits, and in doing

so, shield defendants and their speedy trial rights from the

occasional misguided prosecutor. 

Recognizing our concern about improper appeals, the

majority attempts to minimize the impact of its holding. It

insists that we will not blindly trust the government, nor allow

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it to disrupt proceedings on a whim. This is because “[i]f the

merits of the appeal independently require us to question

whether the evidence truly is material, the government’s certification is not conclusive.” 

This non sequitur completely mischaracterizes my position.

I do not assert that the Loud Hawk rule affects our merits

analysis; I recognize that under either the Loud Hawk rule or

the majority’s rule, a § 3731 certification has no bearing on

any substantive assessment of the materiality of suppressed evidence.11 The point remains, however, that the prosecution will

have unchecked authority to pursue interlocutory appeals

from all suppression orders. Even if this court were certain in

a given case that the certification was inaccurate and that the

jurisdictional conditions of § 3731 were violated, we would

be powerless to dismiss, and we would be forced to adjudicate

the appeal on the merits. See e.g., United States v. Laville, 480

F.3d 187, 196-98 (3d Cir. 2007) (McKee, J., concurring)

(expressing “concern[ ] that the certification the Government

filed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731 may be disingenuous,” noting that “it appears to have been reflexively filed,” and “doubt[ing] that the § 3731 certification was afforded the

consideration Congress intended,” but acknowledging that

circuit precedent foreclosed the possibility of review). The

majority’s dogged attack on this straw man suggests that it

recognizes this problematic result and that it is uncomfortable

with the breadth of its own ruling. 

By raising our power to expedite review, the majority also

discounts the disruptive value of § 3731 appeals. It currently

takes nine to ten months from the filing of an interlocutory

11The majority somehow finds consolation in the notion that the certification will have no bearing on the substantive analysis. The materiality vel

non of the suppressed evidence will not be relevant in many, if not most,

§ 3731 interlocutory appeals. Thus, the Loud Hawk inquiry will typically

be the only opportunity this court has for reviewing the government’s

claim that the evidence suppressed is in fact material. 

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appeal in a criminal case to its placement on an argument calendar.12 Even if we were able to somehow reduce that time by

half, it would still amount to an inordinate delay in trial proceedings. Under the naked power the majority gives the government, appeals taken for the purpose of delay will achieve

that purpose regardless of our alacrity. 

Indeed, this very appeal demonstrates the Loud Hawk rule’s

necessity. The government filed its notice of appeal in this

case on March 16, 2006. It filed another interlocutory appeal

regarding a separate issue on August 23, 2006, and yet

another on September 27, 2006. In this appeal, the government initially refused to provide the three-judge panel with

any evidence to support its bare certification that the suppressed evidence was material, further delaying proceedings.

The government’s litigation strategy has effectively derailed

the criminal trial, while it no doubt continues its search for

more witnesses and victims. The trial date remains in limbo,

and the defendants’ right to a speedy trial has been completely

frustrated. 

Further, the majority fails to apprehend the design of the

Loud Hawk rule, pointing out that our precedent “does nothing to get the appeal on an argument calendar any faster than

the prevailing certification-only rule,” and that “because we

must first determine the jurisdictional issue and then determine the merits separately, a final determination under the

Loud Hawk rule may well take longer.” This misses the point.

Even if it were true that the majority’s rule will lead to a

slightly faster disposition of individual § 3731 appeals, that

hardly warrants the conclusion that Loud Hawk is not “efficient.” Loud Hawk provides a deterrent to frivolous appeals.

12As noted above, § 3731 requires the government to file an appeal of

a suppression order within thirty days of the ruling. Although this provision is salutary, defendants and district courts (which also have an interest

in speedy proceedings) still must endure the substantial lag between the

government’s notice of appeal and our decision. 

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As with most deterrents, the benefit is not realized in the process that follows a breach of the underlying rule, but in the

cases in which the rule is scrupulously observed for fear of

that process.13 To eliminate any confusion, it may be helpful

to review the way in which Loud Hawk operates as a deterrent. 

Under the rule we adopt today, the only thing standing

between a prosecutor and an interlocutory appeal is a piece of

paper. A prosecutor faced with an unfavorable suppression

order must decide within thirty days whether to appeal, and

must leave enough time to obtain the approval of the Solicitor

General.14 If the suppressed evidence is of questionable value,

will she take the time to fully consider its materiality? If there

is even the slightest chance that the evidence might bolster the

prosecution’s case or buy time to further prepare its case, the

temptation will be there to forgo any serious consideration of

the certification requirements, secure in the knowledge that

13An example: Traffic regulations are designed to keep drivers and

pedestrians safe, and law enforcement vehicle patrols further that goal by

providing a monitoring and enforcement mechanism. When a violator is

detected and pursued, the momentary danger may be elevated if a highspeed chase ensues. Are we to conclude that patrols do not keep drivers

and pedestrians safe, then? Do they undermine the very goal they seek to

advance? Hardly. Countless drivers obey the traffic laws because of the

threat of being punished, and that is how the safety gains are achieved in

the aggregate. All other things being equal, so long as the safety gain from

the violations deterred outweighs the elevated levels of danger during

police chases, law enforcement will provide a positive benefit. 

I concede that beyond my own intuition, I “have no evidence that the

certification-plus rule of Loud Hawk is more efficient than simply accepting certification as sufficient to establish our jurisdiction.” I am not the

one seeking to overturn a three-decades-old precedent however. If the

majority seeks to impugn my reasoning because it is not empirically substantiated, I would think it would offer some evidence of its own. 

14Nothing in § 3731 requires the local United States Attorney to seek

the approval of the Solicitor General and nothing in the rule the majority

fashions today gives the courts of appeals the authority to question

whether it has occurred. 

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we will not question the justification for the decision to

appeal. 

The Loud Hawk rule, by contrast, is conducive to a

thoughtful certification process. Knowing a modest showing

in support of the certification will be required, the prosecutor

has incentive to seriously consider whether to seek an interlocutory appeal. Even a hasty decision to challenge the suppression of insubstantial or immaterial evidence might be

reconsidered when actually facing the task of Loud Hawk

compliance. Similarly, a written showing provides the prosecutor’s superiors with something they can truly evaluate; they

need not rely on the trial prosecutor’s vague assurances that

the suppressed evidence is important. 

Like the majority, my hope and expectation is that the government will act wisely and carefully when deciding whether

to pursue an interlocutory appeal, and that its unchecked ability to do so will not diminish the independent judgment of

district judges in the making of important evidentiary rulings.

Unlike the majority, though, I would measure that confidence

with caution. To paraphrase a former President, I would

“trust, but verify.”

15 Only this way can we provide the congressionally desired review necessary to safeguard defendants’ rights. 

The Loud Hawk rule secures the continuity of proceedings

by ensuring that the appeal is not taken for purposes of delay

and involves evidence that is both substantial and material.

The rule the majority embraces today permits a prosecutor to

disrupt proceedings with the stroke of a pen. Congress did not

require us to permit that when it enacted § 3731, and we

should not do so now. 

15See, e.g., Remarks on Signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces

Treaty, II Pub. Papers 1455 (Dec. 18, 1987) (Ronald Reagan). 

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