Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03076/USCOURTS-caDC-00-03076-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sealed Case

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 8, 2001 Decided May 11, 2001

No. 00-3076

In re: Sealed Case

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 00ms00409)

---------

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Ginsburg and Tatel,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Ginsburg, Circuit Judge: A witness before a grand jury

sitting in the United States District Court for the District of

Columbia testified that he had received a copy of the qui tam

complaint in a certain sealed civil proceeding then pending

before a different federal district court. Two prosecuting

attorneys from the Department of Justice, acting upon their

own initiative and without the approval of the court supervising the grand jury (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the

grand jury court), informed the judge hearing the qui tam

case of the breach of the seal and provided him with a

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summary of the witness's testimony before the grand jury.

That judge then sent a letter to the district court here

requesting a copy of the relevant testimony, and the Government moved the court ex parte to transmit the testimony

pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(3)(E).

The court acceded and ordered the relevant portions of the

grand jury transcript transmitted to the court that had

requested them (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the qui

tam court).

The plaintiffs in this case, including the witness who testified before the grand jury about the breach of the seal, are

also plaintiffs in the qui tam action; they are aggrieved

because divulgement and subsequent transmission of the

grand jury testimony have jeopardized their entitlement to

share in the financial settlement in the civil case. The

plaintiffs appeal from the district court's denial of two motions: one requesting that the Government be ordered to

show cause why it should not be held in contempt for

violating Rule 6(e) by divulging to the qui tam court a matter

occurring before the grand jury; and another seeking vacatur

of the district court's order transmitting the testimony to that

court because the order did not comply with the requirements

of Rule 6(e)(3)(E).

As to the first motion, we hold that although the Government violated Rule 6(e) when the two prosecutors sent a

summary of the testimony to the qui tam court without the

approval of the court supervising the grand jury, the latter

court appropriately declined to order the Government to show

cause why it should not be held in contempt; the court had

previously ratified the disclosure when it ordered transmission of the testimony. As to the second motion, we hold that

the court's transmission of the testimony failed to comply

with Rule 6(e)(3)(E) because the court did not include the

required "written evaluation of the need for continued grand

jury secrecy"; only if the court upon remand properly makes

and transmits such an evaluation will its transmission of the

materials be valid.

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I. Background*

In 1996 a certain party filed a qui tam complaint under the

False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. s 3730, with a district court in

another circuit. That court ordered the proceedings sealed,

as required by 31 U.S.C. s 3730(b)(2)-(b)(4). The plaintiffs in

this case later filed in that same district a separate qui tam

complaint substantially similar to the first such complaint,

and the two complaints were consolidated (along with other

similar complaints). Although the qui tam court ultimately

dismissed the present plaintiffs' complaint on a jurisdictional

ground, the parties later entered into a settlement agreement

under which these plaintiffs were to share in the proceeds.

Subsequently a grand jury was impaneled by the district

court in the District of Columbia to investigate allegations

that certain government employees had received payments

out of the aforementioned settlement. The Criminal Division

of the Department of Justice handled the investigation. One

of the plaintiffs in this case testified before the grand jury

that he had received from a government employee a copy of

the first complaint filed under seal with the qui tam court.

The witness (and present plaintiff) testified that he promptly

returned the complaint to the sender and advised the sender

that he should not have sent it. Acting upon this testimony,

agents from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in the

Department of the Interior interviewed the sender, who said

that he had indeed sent the complaint for the purpose of

getting advice but that he had not known the complaint was

under seal.

On July 18, 2000 two prosecutors from the Department of

Justice filed with the qui tam court, under seal and ex parte, a

document they styled "Notice to the Court of A Breach of

Seal." In that document the prosecutors summarized the

nature of the grand jury proceedings, the substance of the

witness-plaintiff's testimony, and the answers the sender gave

in the ensuing interview with OIG agents. With respect to

the grand jury testimony, they specifically stated "[the wit-

__________

* Certain factual details are necessarily omitted because this case is

itself under seal.

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ness] testified that he received a copy of the then-sealed ...

qui tam from [the government sender]." The prosecutors

also explained that the grand jury proceeding was ongoing

and asked the qui tam court, in order to avoid interfering

with their criminal investigation, to afford the DOJ an opportunity to seek a stay of the civil proceedings should the court

decide to disclose the breach of seal to the qui tam parties.

In response, the qui tam court urged the Government to

move the grand jury court under Rule 6(e) to transmit the

grand jury testimony to it for review, which the Government

did on July 26. Immediately thereafter the qui tam court

sent its own letter to the grand jury court requesting transmission of the testimony. On August 1 the grand jury court

held a sealed, ex parte proceeding at which only the Government was represented; there the court balanced the need for

grand jury secrecy against the public interest in avoiding an

injustice in the qui tam case, and ordered transmission of the

relevant grand jury materials to the qui tam court.

On August 9 the qui tam court held a sealed, in camera

hearing attended by counsel for all the plaintiffs sharing in

the settlement. Having considered the objections of the

plaintiffs in this case and the public interest in grand jury

secrecy, the qui tam court nonetheless decided to disclose to

the other plaintiffs that the plaintiffs in this case had illicitly

learned of the initial sealed complaint before filing their own:

the "integrity of the court ha[d] been violated" and the

plaintiffs in this case "should not be allowed to keep the gains

that they have made because of their bad faith filing" of a

copycat complaint. At the same time, the qui tam court

invited the other plaintiffs to consider initiating civil contempt

proceedings against these plaintiffs; it also suggested that it

might initiate proceedings to sanction them for criminal contempt. The plaintiffs here represent that other plaintiffs in

the qui tam case have indeed since "filed contempt motions

against [them] and requested disgorgement of all past settlement monies paid to [them]"; and that the qui tam court "has

frozen all future settlement money" owed to them under the

settlement agreement.

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Thus aggrieved by the disclosure of the grand jury testimony, these plaintiffs moved the grand jury court to (1) order

the Government to show cause why it should not be held in

contempt for disclosing the testimony in the "Notice" to the

qui tam court; and (2) vacate its order transferring grand

jury testimony to the qui tam court. The grand jury court

denied both motions because it had already determined that

the competing interests weighed in favor of transmission and

it "s[aw] no good reason to revisit [its prior] ruling." The

plaintiffs now appeal from the denial of those motions.

II. Analysis

As the Supreme Court has said, "the proper functioning of

our grand jury system depends upon the secrecy of grand

jury proceedings." Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Northwest, 441 U.S. 211, 218 (1979). That secrecy safeguards vital

interests in (1) preserving the willingness and candor of

witnesses called before the grand jury; (2) not alerting the

target of an investigation who might otherwise flee or interfere with the grand jury; and (3) preserving the rights of a

suspect who might later be exonerated. Id. at 219. In order

to protect these interests, "[b]oth Congress and th[e] Court

have consistently stood ready to defend [grand jury secrecy]

against unwarranted intrusion. In the absence of a clear

indication in a statute or Rule, we must always be reluctant to

conclude that a breach of this secrecy has been authorized."

United States v. Sells Engineering, Inc., 463 U.S. 418, 425

(1983).

Rule 6(e)(2) protects the secrecy of grand jury proceedings

by specifying that "[a]n attorney for the government ... shall

not disclose matters occurring before the grand jury, except

as otherwise provided for in these rules." The exceptions

permit disclosure: (i) to an attorney for the Government in

the performance of that attorney's duty; (ii) to such government personnel as an attorney for the Government deems

necessary to assist an attorney in enforcing federal criminal

law; or (iii) to another federal grand jury. Rule 6(e)(3)(A)

and (3)(C)(iii). The Rule also permits, when directed by a

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court, disclosure: (i) preliminary to or in connection with a

judicial proceeding; (ii) at the request of a criminal defendant

if the defendant shows cause; or (iii) to an appropriate state

or local official for the purpose of enforcing state criminal law.

See Rule 6(e)(3)(C). It is against this legal background that

we analyze the two motions here at issue.

A. Motion To Order Government To Show Cause Why

It Should Not Be Held in Contempt

The plaintiffs moved the district court to order the Government to show cause why it should not be held in civil

contempt for disclosing grand jury testimony to the qui tam

court. The plaintiffs also sought equitable relief for the

alleged civil contempt, thereby asserting a cognizable interest

in preventing transmittal of the grand jury testimony. Cf.

Barry v. United States, 865 F.2d 1317, 1322 (D.C. Cir. 1989)

(private party lacks cause of action for civil contempt without

other equitable relief).

We readily agree with the plaintiffs that the Government

violated Rule 6(e)(2) when, without prior authorization from

the grand jury court, it filed with the qui tam court the

Notice summarizing the grand jury testimony of one of the

present plaintiffs. Indeed, the Government does not dispute

that its summary of the plaintiff's testimony in the Notice

embraces "matters occurring before the grand jury," Rule

6(e)(2), or that its summary does not come within any exception enumerated in the Rule.

The Government instead takes the untenable and disturbingly cavalier position that "[a] sealed, ex parte, conveyance of

grand jury information to a federal judge who is acting in his

judicial capacity is not a 'disclosure' within the meaning of the

grand jury secrecy rule." For this the Government relies

upon that eminent legal authority, Webster's New Collegiate

Dictionary (1977), which defines to "disclose" as to "expose to

view" or to "make known or public." By this logic the

Government presumably would have us read the Rule to

permit any revelation of matters occurring before a grand

jury as long as it is not made to "the public" or at least a

member thereof. That position, however, is foreclosed by the

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Rule itself, which expressly provides that grand jury information may in specified circumstances be conveyed to "an attorney for the government," "government personnel," "another

federal grand jury," and "an appropriate official of a state or

subdivision of a state"; the necessary implication is that

absent such express exceptions, sharing grand jury information with those persons would be a prohibited disclosure even

though they are not "the public."

Moreover, the Government's interpretation of the Rule

defies the Supreme Court's clear instruction in Sells Engineering, 463 U.S. at 425-27, that exceptions to Rule 6(e) must

be narrowly construed and that secrecy concerns extend to

disclosures made to (and indeed, within) the Government

itself. There the Court rejected the argument that Rule

6(e)(3)(A)(i) permits the disclosure of grand jury material to

an attorney on the civil -- as opposed to the criminal -- side

of the DOJ:

[D]isclosure to Government bodies raises much the same

concerns that underlie the rule of secrecy in other contexts. Not only does disclosure increase the number of

persons to whom information is available (thereby increasing the risk of inadvertent or illegal disclosure to

others), but it renders considerably more concrete the

threat to the willingness of witnesses to come forward

and to testify fully and candidly. If a witness knows or

fears that his testimony before the grand jury will be

routinely available for use in governmental civil litigation

or administrative action, he may well be less willing to

speak for fear that he will get himself into trouble in

some other forum.

463 U.S. at 432. The disclosure the Government made in this

case clearly implicates the Sells Court's concern about penalizing a witness for testifying: Although the disclosure was

made to the qui tam court and not to a government attorney

for use in a civil investigation, the result has been that civil

contempt proceedings were brought against the plaintiffs in

this case, they may be required to disgorge the proceeds of

their settlement, and they face the possibility that the qui tam

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court itself will initiate criminal contempt proceedings against

them. Whatever the equities of the matter in the qui tam

court, therefore, we have no doubt that this revelation is

within the core concern of Rule 6(e).

With respect to the specific provisions of the Rule, we

simply do not understand how the Government can both

concede the Rule "does not explicitly authorize a government

attorney to give grand jury materials to the federal judge

presiding over the civil litigation," and yet maintain the Rule

does not "prohibit the prosecutor from communicating some

grand jury information to the judge." The Rule on its face

prohibits such a communication because it does not except it

from the general prohibition. Again, to hold otherwise clearly would contradict the teaching of the Court in Sells, 463

U.S. at 425. The Government's effort to show there is a place

for implied exceptions to the Rule by noting that it "routinely

includes grand jury information in sealed search warrant

affidavits" comes to naught: as the plaintiffs point out, that

use of grand jury information is expressly authorized by Rule

6(e)(3)(A)(i) ("Disclosure otherwise prohibited ... may be

made to ... such government personnel ... as are deemed

necessary by a[ government] attorney to assist ... in the

performance of such attorney's duty to enforce federal criminal law").

The Government's remaining arguments from the Rule

itself are easily dispatched. It argues that because Rule

6(e)(3)(C) excepts certain disclosures when "permitted [or

directed] by a court," the Rule necessarily excludes from the

definition of "disclos[ure]" any communication of grand jury

information to a court; the Government's reasoning is that

the permitting or directing court must have "some knowledge

of the grand jury material" in order to decide whether it

should be disclosed. In this case, however, the grand jury

material is to be used in another "judicial proceeding," as

provided in Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(i); and because Rule 6(e)(D)

specifies the federal district court "in the district where the

grand jury convened" as the court that may authorize such a

disclosure, the Government's unauthorized disclosure of the

material to any other court is indeed a prohibited disclosure.

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We therefore need not decide whether revelation of grand

jury materials to a different court pursuant to another of the

exceptions enumerated in Rule 6(e)(3)(C) necessarily constitutes a disclosure, but we do note that the Government cites

no precedent -- nor do we know of any -- holding that it does

not. The Government also argues that use of the word

"transmit[ ]" in Rule 6(e)(3)(E) to describe the movement of

grand jury material from a court supervising a grand jury to

a federal district court in another district for use in a judicial

proceeding there means that the revelation of information to

a court is not a "disclosure." This argument is plainly

misconceived because Rule 6(e)(3)(E) specifically requires

that the court supervising the grand jury transmit to the

other court "a written evaluation of the need for continued

grand jury secrecy" along with the grand jury material; that

prescription would be meaningless if free movement of grand

jury information among courts were permitted in any event.

For the foregoing reasons there can be no doubt that the

two prosecutors violated the proscription of Rule 6(e) on July

18 when they sent their Notice to the qui tam court. The

proper course would have been for the Government to petition the grand jury court to transmit the materials pursuant

to Rule 6(e)(3)(E). And on July 26 -- as we have seen

before -- the Government did just that.

When the plaintiffs moved the grand jury court on August

14 to order the Government to show cause why it should not

be held in contempt, they undoubtedly made out a prima facie

case that the Government had violated Rule 6(e) on July 18.

Although the grand jury court's ultimate decision whether to

hold the Government in contempt would be subject to review

only for abuse of discretion, see Rule 6(e)(2) ("a knowing

violation ... may be punished"), ordinarily "[o]nce a prima

facie case is shown, the district court must conduct a 'show

cause' hearing," Barry v. United States, 865 F.2d 1317, 1321

(D.C. Cir. 1989) (emphases added); at that hearing the Government's burden would be "to rebut the inferences drawn

from the [evidence] establish[ing] the prima facie case" that it

had violated the Rule. In re Sealed Case No. 98-3077, 151

F.3d 1059, 1075 (D.C. Cir. 1998). In this case the grand jury

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court did not err in denying the plaintiffs' show cause motion,

however, because there was no possibility the court would

give the plaintiffs the relief they sought. The overwhelming

fact is that on August 1 the grand jury court had itself

determined upon a proper request from the Government that

the underlying testimony summarized in the Notice should be

transmitted to the qui tam court. As such, it would have

been pointless for the grand jury court to hold a show cause

hearing: Because the Government could not undo the July 18

disclosure, holding the Government in civil contempt would

serve no useful purpose; the court would in no event have

ordered the recall and suppression of the materials, and it

was quite right in "see[ing] no good reason to revisit [its

prior] ruling [transmitting the testimony]." Accordingly, notwithstanding the Government's initial violation of the Rule,

we affirm the district court's denial of the plaintiffs' motion to

require the Government to show cause why it should not be

held in contempt.

B. Motion To Vacate the Order To Transfer Grand

Jury Material

Rule 6(e) specifies how and under what conditions one

federal district court may transmit grand jury material to

another federal district court for possible disclosure in a

judicial proceeding in the transferee court: A petition is to be

filed in the district where the grand jury convened; if the

Government is the petitioner, then the court may hold an ex

parte hearing to consider the petition. See Rule 6(e)(3)(D).

A matter occurring before a grand jury may not be disclosed unless there is a "particularized need" therefor; that

is, only if the "material [sought] is needed to avoid a possible

injustice in another judicial proceeding, ... the need for

disclosure is greater than the need for continued secrecy, and

... the[ ] request is structured to cover only material so

needed." Douglas Oil Co., 441 U.S. at 222. In the case just

cited the Court held that the appropriate procedure generally

is for the court of the district in which the grand jury

convened,

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after making a written evaluation of the need for continued grand jury secrecy and a determination that the

limited evidence before it showed that disclosure might

be appropriate, to send the requested materials to the

court[ ] where the civil cases were pending. The [transferee] court, armed with [its] special knowledge of the

status of the civil actions, then [may] consider[ ] the

requests for disclosure in light of the supervisory court's

evaluation of the need for continued grand jury secrecy.

In this way, both the need for continued secrecy and the

need for disclosure [can be] evaluated by the courts in

the best position to make the respective evaluations.

Id. at 230-31. Rule 6(e)(3)(E) now codifies this procedure:

"The court [where the grand jury convened] shall order

transmitted to the court to which the matter [i.e. the petition

for disclosure] is transferred the material sought to be disclosed ... and a written evaluation of the need for continued

grand jury secrecy."

In this case, however, the order of the court transmitting

grand jury material to the qui tam court did not comply with

Rule 6(e)(3)(E). The court failed to transmit a "written

evaluation of the need for continued grand jury secrecy."

The Government notes that later, in addressing the plaintiffs' motion to vacate its order transferring the grand jury

materials to the qui tam court, the grand jury court said

that prior to ordering the transfer it had "balanced such

need [for continuing secrecy] against the asserted interest in

avoiding injustice in another federal district court." The

grand jury court's performance under Rule 6(e) is nonetheless deficient in three respects: First, it did not supply a

"written evaluation" to the qui tam court, along with the

grand jury materials, as contemplated by the Rule. Second,

the court's subsequent statement that it had balanced the

competing interests -- even had it been made before rather

than after the transmission -- was too conclusory to inform

the qui tam court's balancing by conveying the grand jury

court's knowledge of the continuing need for grand jury

secrecy in the particular circumstances of this investigation.

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Third, the grand jury court overreached in balancing the

interest in secrecy -- with which it was familiar -- against

the need for disclosure, as to which the qui tam court had

the comparative advantage; it thereby intruded upon the

role of the transferee court, which is to make a fullyinformed determination of the need for disclosure and to

perform the ultimate balancing in accordance with Douglas

Oil Co. and Rule 6(e)(3)(E). The only way to cure these

defects in any degree is for the grand jury court now to

make a "written evaluation" of the nature and extent of the

need for continued grand jury secrecy and to transmit it to

the qui tam court for that court to make its own, more

completely-informed determination in light of the former

court's submission.

The plaintiffs insist, however, that "no remedy other than

recall of all material and total suppression will redress the

harm" they incurred because of the district court's error, and

that the court therefore should have vacated its August 1

order transmitting materials to the qui tam court; still further, they argue that transfer cannot proceed anew at this

point. Neither of these propositions is well founded.

First, the plaintiffs argue that "even a subsequent disclosure that complied with Rule 6(e)'s mandates could not eradicate the taint created by the government's initial, improper

release of materials to the [qui tam] court." The exclusionary

rule from which the plaintiffs implicitly borrow is limited to

the cure of constitutional violations; no precedent supports

its extension to this breach of a Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure with no constitutional underpinnings. Nor is there

any taint to eradicate: The Government's July 26 motion for

release by the grand jury court is in no way the fruit of its

July 18 disclosure to the qui tam court; the Government

obtained no additional evidence because of its disclosure and

was no better served than if it had properly petitioned the

grand jury court in the first instance. The plaintiffs' first

cogent articulation of a rationale for their claim of "taint"

came at oral argument, when they suggested that the letter

the qui tam court sent to the grand jury court requesting

transmission of the grand jury testimony was the fruit of the

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Government's improper disclosure and may have informed

the district court's decision in favor of transmission. This is

too little, too late; we are left with no reason to think the

district court would not have ordered the transmission even if

all it knew was that the qui tam court's seal -- unbeknownst

to that court -- apparently had been breached.

Second, the plaintiffs argue that Rule 6(e) categorically

bars disclosure of grand jury materials while the grand jury

is still sitting. For this they claim support from the Second

Circuit's inability some time ago to identify "a single case

authorizing disclosure of a witness' testimony during the

pendency of grand jury investigations." In re Bonnano, 344

F.2d 830, 834 (1965). The Rule itself, however, draws no

distinction between ongoing and completed grand jury proceedings. The plaintiffs draw our attention to various places

in the Advisory Committee's Notes on Rule 6 where the past

tense is used, and to the reference in Rule 6(e)(3)(E) to "the

need for continued grand jury secrecy" (emphasis added),

which they see as suggesting that the grand jury proceedings

must have been concluded; but the Government reciprocally

points to Rules 6(e)(2) and (3)(C), which speak in the present

tense of "matters occurring before the grand jury" (emphasis

added), and therefore just as strongly suggest that a proceeding may be ongoing. More important, however, the Supreme

Court has clearly indicated the inquiry into "particularized

need" would govern regardless whether the grand jury is

ongoing. See Douglas Oil Co., 441 U.S. at 222 (inquiry

proceeds "even when the grand jury whose transcripts are

sought has concluded its operations").

Third, the plaintiffs insist the district court may not proceed ex parte in determining whether to transmit the materials. The Rule, however, expressly permits the court to

proceed ex parte where the Government is the petitioner, as

it was here. See Rule 6(e)(3)(D). The plaintiffs' sole basis

for arguing to the contrary is the Ninth Circuit's statement

that the Government must make "a specific showing of the

need to make the disclosure ex parte," which could be done

only in "the most unusual cases." United States v. Nix, 21

F.3d 347, 352 (1994). Nix, however, is on its face limited to

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cases in which the Government petitions on behalf of a

private litigant and therefore "must make the same showing

as the private litigant would be required to make" -- that is,

ordinarily in open court. Id. at 351-52. As it would be inapt

to assimilate the qui tam court to a private litigant for this

purpose, we see no reason to doubt the Government may here

petition ex parte as authorized under the Rule.

Fourth, the plaintiffs argue that because the judge of the

qui tam court was effectively "the party petitioning for the

material," there would be "an irreconcilable conflict of interest for that selfsame judge to serve as" the ultimate decisionmaker who assesses "particularized need." Here the plaintiffs conflate the qui tam court's legitimate concern for doing

justice to the parties before it with a personal interest on the

part of the judge; any decision to disclose the grand jury

materials to the parties in the civil action is for their benefit,

not that of the court. If the qui tam court -- once it receives

the grand jury court's written evaluation of the need for

continued secrecy -- in fact orders disclosure, it will be doing

so only because it weighed the competing considerations and

struck the balance on that side. That is the very process

dictated by the Supreme Court in Douglas Oil Co. and by the

Rule itself, and no bias can be ascribed to the qui tam court

for adhering to it.

Finally, the plaintiffs maintain that the provisions of Rule

6(e) authorizing the transmission of grand jury materials "in

connection with a judicial proceeding" are inapposite to this

case; their claim is that a would-be transferee court cannot

itself be a petitioner under Rule 6(e), nor can the Government

act on its behalf.

As to the first aspect of that claim, the plaintiffs try to

make something of the Court's allusion in Douglas Oil Co. to

the "occasional need for litigants" to obtain grand jury transcripts, 441 U.S. at 220, but that obviously does not rule out

the possibility that a district court might likewise need to

obtain a transcript in connection with a "judicial proceeding"

before it.

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As to the ability of the Government to petition on behalf of

a transferee court, the plaintiffs again seek support from

United States v. Nix. But the Ninth Circuit did not there

circumscribe the ability of the United States to petition under

Rule 6(e); quite the contrary, it held that the United States

may petition not only on its own behalf, but also, as it had in

that case, on behalf of a private party. Id. at 351. We see no

reason the United States may not likewise petition on behalf

of a federal district court, which has an important interest in

the integrity of its seal. (We note also, for what it is worth,

that the private parties before that court are the immediate

beneficiaries of any disclosure the qui tam court may make.)

The plaintiffs then suggest that because the Sells Engineering decision, above, precludes the Government from using its

access to the grand jury to further its interest in related civil

litigation, "this Court should reject the interpretation that

Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(i) permits disclosure of secret grand jury

materials to a federal court in a collateral civil matter." The

lesson of Sells, however, is more nuanced than that: the

Government may not freely use grand jury materials for civil

litigation, but it may obtain a court order for such use under

Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(i). See 463 U.S. at 442-44. That is all the

Government seeks in this case and all it may obtain in a

properly conducted proceeding upon remand.

Evidently the plaintiffs would have us believe that Rule 6(e)

precludes the Government from doing anything to bring

grand jury testimony regarding the breach of a court's seal to

the attention of that court. That is neither sensible nor

consonant with the judgment reflected in the Rule that the

Government may petition to disclose grand jury material "in

connection with a judicial proceeding."

Inexplicably, however, the Government does not characterize its motion to have the district court transmit the materials

to the qui tam court as a "petition" within the meaning of

6(e)(3)(D). Instead, it represents that "[i]n this case, because

no one had petitioned for disclosure, [the grand jury court]

and [the qui tam court] followed a slightly different procedure," the result of which was that the grand jury court

decided sua sponte to transmit the materials to the qui tam

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court. Although the Rule does nothing affirmatively to authorize this procedure, the Government posits that "[s]ubsection D [of Rule 6(e)(2)] merely establishes a process when

someone does 'petition for disclosure.' "

We cannot possibly sanction that interpretation. For one

thing, it would be disingenuous to hold that the district court

acted sua sponte when it ordered grand jury testimony

transmitted in direct response to the Government's motion

and its ex parte appearance (in support of the qui tam court's

written request). Worse still, we would do substantial violence to the Rule if we were to accept the Government's

proposition that the specification of procedures governing a

petition under Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(i) leaves room for a court to

release materials to another court without having received

such a petition whenever it sees fit and presumably unconstrained by the notice and hearing requirements applicable to

a petition. Therefore in keeping with the Rule, the district

court should upon remand of this case proceed upon the

understanding that the Government is acting under 6(e)(3)(D)

as a petitioner on behalf of the qui tam court.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the order of the

district court denying the plaintiffs' motion to require the

Government to show cause why it should not be held in

contempt. We nonetheless remand this matter to the district

court because its order to transfer grand jury materials to the

qui tam court did not comply with Rule 6(e)(3)(E). Consistent with this opinion, the district court shall transmit to the

qui tam court "a written evaluation of the need for continued

grand jury secrecy."

So ordered.

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