Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/265/459/62990/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:52:13+00:00

Document:
Donald H. Shaw, Asst. U. S. Atty., S.D. N.Y., New York City (Arthur H. Christy, U. S. Atty., and Mark F. Hughes, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., New York City, on the brief), for appellant.
Leonard Maran, New York City, for defendant-appellee.
This is an appeal from an order of Judge Bryan, D.C.S.D.N.Y., 164 F. Supp. 328, dismissing an indictment charging the appellee, Richard A. Cleary, with thefts from the mails and conspiracy to commit mail thefts. As the order below is not based on the invalidity or construction of a statute and did not bar appellee's reindictment on the same charges, jurisdiction of this appeal exists in this court under 18 U.S.C. § 3731. See United States v. Storrs, 272 U.S. 652, 47 S. Ct. 221, 71 L. Ed. 460.
However apt the court's reasoning might be for the situation where an accused is called to testify at his own trial, United States v. Housing Foundation of America, 3 Cir., 176 F.2d 665; 18 U.S.C. § 3481, it must be noted that a grand jury investigation, though in a sense a criminal proceeding, Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 12 S. Ct. 195, 35 L. Ed. 1110, is not closely analogous to a criminal trial. Because the grand jury merely accuses and the accused is protected from criminal punishment by all the safeguards of a trial, it has remained as free of court-made limitations and restrictions as it was in England at the time the Fifth Amendment was adopted. United States v. Johnson, 319 U.S. 503, 510-512, 63 S. Ct. 1233, 87 L. Ed. 1546; Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273, 282, 39 S. Ct. 468, 63 L. Ed. 979; Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 26 S. Ct. 370, 50 L. Ed. 652. While it is constitutionally intended to provide a measure of restraint on unjust and ill founded accusations of crime, this protection had its origin in the honesty and fair-mindedness of the grand jurors themselves,2 and today rests largely on the same foundation, rather than on any court-developed rules. In re Kittle, C.C.S.D.N.Y., 180 F. 946, 947; cf. Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339, 349-350, 78 S. Ct. 311, 2 L. Ed. 2d 321; Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 362, 76 S. Ct. 406, 100 L. Ed. 397; United States v. Garnes, 2 Cir., 258 F.2d 530, 534.
Neither federal agents nor prosecutors are broadly proscribed from questioning an accused in noncoercive situations. Indeed the federal courts have acknowledged the inevitability and the desirability of such interrogation. United States v. Wilson, 2 Cir., 264 F.2d 104. We do not understand that greater restrictions ever were imposed on the grand jury's inquiries. "It is a grand inquest, a body with powers of investigation and inquisition, the scope of whose inquiries is not to be limited narrowly by questions of propriety or forecasts of the probable result of the investigation, or by doubts whether any particular individual will be found properly subject to an accusation of crime." Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273, 282, 39 S. Ct. 468, 471, 63 L. Ed. 979. Accordingly the question here is not so much whether Cleary, knowing his constitutional rights, consciously elected not to assert them, but "whether the testimony was freely given, all things considered." United States v. Block, 2 Cir., 88 F.2d 618, 621, certiorari denied Block v. United States, 301 U.S. 690, 57 S. Ct. 793, 81 L. Ed. 1347. See United States v. Klein, 2 Cir., 247 F.2d 908; Pulford v. United States, 6 Cir., 155 F.2d 944; United States v. Kimball, C.C.S.D.N.Y., 117 F. 156.
It is also to be noted that in holding these warnings inadequate under the circumstances, the district court obviously went beyond any standard which can be applied objectively and without discrimination to all persons having knowledge of crime, to set up a subjective test depending upon a particular person's state of mind. Such a test would make any examination at all highly precarious. Its difficulties are indicated here where the court found Cleary of limited intelligence, weak, and easily influenced, although at the same time "not lacking in a certain native shrewdness" and with "some education at the high school level." The requirement thus framed actually goes far beyond anything required of the English police under their highly developed quasi-judicial system renowned for its protection to the accused. For there, whenever the initially encouraged interrogation has gone to the point of producing an indication of guilt for which the witness should be charged, the witness must be given a caution, but one in precise and definite terms in general form like that developed by the prosecutor, very likely in recollection of the required English practice. See the lucid exposition of this practice by Mr. Justice Devlin, The Criminal Prosecution in England 31-41, 137, 138 (1958).6 Thus the actual interrogation here measured up to standards of justice usually considered even higher than our own.
Our law endeavors to establish a fair balance between proper and useful police investigation and coercive attempts at surprise or forced confession. As we had occasion to point out in United States v. Wilson, supra, 2 Cir., 264 F.2d 104, it is not an evil thing for one accused of crime to aid the police in law enforcement by voluntarily admitting his guilt; and we are not disposed to elevate to the dignity of a constitutional right restrictions on ordinary investigation which in the present condition of society may be an unwarranted extravagance. We do not see that the circumstances under which appellee's indictment was procured reveal the slightest injustice to him or afford any basis for believing that he will not receive a fair trial in due course. Hence the indictment must be reinstated.
The thanks of the court are due assigned counsel, who has protected the rights of the appellee with ability and devotion.

References: § 3731
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