Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/552/940/169489/
Timestamp: 2019-08-24 13:12:01
Document Index: 398165340

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 401', '§ 2515', '§ 3504', '§ 3504', '§ 3504', '§ 3504', '§ 3504', '§ 3504', '§ 6003', '§ 6003']

United States of America, Appellant, v. Michael Kazuo Yanagita and Marc Choyei Kondo, Appellees, 552 F.2d 940 (2d Cir. 1977) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 1977 › United States of America, Appellant, v. Michael Kazuo Yanagita and Marc Choyei Kondo, Appellees
United States of America, Appellant, v. Michael Kazuo Yanagita and Marc Choyei Kondo, Appellees, 552 F.2d 940 (2d Cir. 1977)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 552 F.2d 940 (2d Cir. 1977)
Argued Jan. 11, 1977. Decided March 30, 1977
On June 24, 1976, appellees were charged with criminal contempt under 18 U.S.C. § 401 for refusing to obey the court's order to testify, and the case was assigned to Judge John F. Dooling, Jr. On August 17, 1976, Judge Dooling, in a written opinion reported at 418 F. Supp. 214, denied appellees' Fifth Amendment claims but dismissed the contempt informations against them on the ground that the orders to testify were based upon insufficient assurances by the government that illicit surveillance had not been employed. The government took this appeal from Judge Dooling's order.DISCUSSION
In Gelbard v. United States, 408 U.S. 41, 92 S. Ct. 2357, 33 L. Ed. 2d 179 (1972), the Supreme Court held that as a defense to a contempt charge a grand jury witness may assert that his testimony would have been inadmissible in the original proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 2515, which provides that:
During a continuing grand jury proceeding, the usual setting for claims under § 3504, time is usually not as much of the essence as during a trial because the grand jury sits for a much longer period of time than the average trial jury and thus may recall a witness after his § 3504 request has been answered. Under these circumstances, a § 3504 request will rarely be rejected as untimely, and the government has been held to a high standard of completeness in responding to such a request. In re Buscaglia, 518 F.2d 77, 79 (2d Cir. 1975). But even in a grand jury proceeding, upon the government's production of a valid warrant the witness has been held not to be entitled to a full-blown hearing on the legality of the warrant prior to testifying since "the traditional notion that the functioning of the grand jury system should not be impeded or interrupted could prevail at that time over the witness' interest . . . ." In re Persico, 491 F.2d 1156, 1160 (2d Cir. 1974). See also Gelbard v. United States, supra, 408 U.S. at 70, 92 S. Ct. 2357 (White, J., concurring).
In addition, the duty of the government to respond under § 3504 may vary with the specificity of the claims raised by the witness. United States v. See, 505 F.2d 845, 856 (9th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 992, 95 S. Ct. 1428, 43 L. Ed. 2d 673 (1975); United States v. Stevens, 510 F.2d 1101 (5th Cir. 1975).
"A grand jury ordinarily deals with many inquiries and cases at one time, and it can rather easily suspend action on any one, and turn to another . . . . Trial courts, on the contrary, cannot be expected to dart from case to case on their calendars anytime a witness who has been granted immunity decides not to answer questions. In a trial, the court, the parties, witnesses and jurors are assembled in the expectation that it will proceed as scheduled." United States v. Wilson, 421 U.S. 309, 318, 95 S. Ct. 1802, 1807, 44 L. Ed. 2d 186 (1975).
As in United States v. Grusse, 515 F.2d 157, 159 (2d Cir. 1975), we are satisfied that under these circumstances the government did all that could reasonably be expected of it and that its denial was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of § 3504. To hold otherwise would be to put every criminal jury trial at the mercy of any key witness bent on sabotaging it. In conducting such a trial the court is dealing with an orchestrated event in which the simultaneous participation of many persons judge, counsel, defendants, witnesses and jurors is essential. The necessity for their coordinated presence renders it a fragile procedure at best, which can be destroyed or subjected to horrendously wasteful delay because of non-participation on the part of any of the essential figures. See Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341-42, 60 S. Ct. 266, 84 L. Ed. 307 (1939). Disruption through contrived maneuvering under the guise of § 3504 or even a casual attitude on the part of witnesses or their counsel is to be discouraged. We therefore reverse that part of the district court's decision holding the government's response inadequate.
Appellees also claim that despite the grant of use immunity for their testimony, they could not be protected from the threat of foreign prosecution and that their refusal to testify at trial was therefore within their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The district court rejected this claim as "too chimerical." We agree. Guided by the Supreme Court's decision in Zicarelli v. N.J. Investigation Commission, 406 U.S. 472, 478, 92 S. Ct. 1670, 32 L. Ed. 2d 234 (1972), we find it unnecessary to reach the constitutional question of whether the Fifth Amendment privilege applies to threats of foreign prosecution2 in the absence of showing a basis for "a real and substantial fear" of such prosecution. Appellees' claim is simply too "remote" and "speculative" to qualify.
Where inquiry at trial or in a grand jury proceeding focuses upon activities engaged in by American citizens upon American soil, as it does in the case at bar, Zicarelli makes it clear that one invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege has the burden of establishing, first, that the subject of the government's questions raises "a real danger of being compelled to disclose information that might incriminate him under foreign law," and second, that there is a "real and substantial" fear that prosecution by the foreign government might ensue. Only after the witness meets this burden is the government required to show that the foreign government respects the grant of immunity conferred on the witness in order to compel him to testify. See Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, 378 U.S. 52, 79, 84 S. Ct. 1594, 12 L. Ed. 2d 678 (1964).
Even assuming the applicability of these statutes, appellees' claim falls short in two critical respects. First, there is no indication on the record that any question which was directed to Yanagita or Kondo required that they admit any knowledge of or participation in a conspiracy to overthrow Japan or to kill its Emperor. Nor is there any indication that they would be asked to furnish leads to such evidence. In fact, the government represented to the district court that its questions would be directed solely at the means by which the weapons in question had been transferred to Chin and Young, and the indictment against Chin and Young was itself solely restricted to firearms violations. While appellees might have argued that some specific question posed by the prosecutor would provide important leads from which evidence could have been obtained by Japanese authorities, their wholesale refusal to respond to any questions posed to them at the trial denied them this chance and was unjustified by the speculative nature of their claim. See In re Parker, 411 F.2d 1067, 1069, vacated as moot sub nom. Parker v. United States, 397 U.S. 96, 90 S. Ct. 819, 25 L. Ed. 2d 81 (1970). Without such a record, their claims are entirely too speculative and remote.
Secondly, appellees have totally failed to demonstrate that the Japanese authorities have any interest whatsoever in their prosecution. While we might be willing to assume the interest of a foreign sovereign in prosecuting crimes by our citizens which occur on its soil, see, e.g., In re Cardassi, 351 F. Supp. 1080, 1084 (D. Conn. 1972), or where the offense falls within a frequently-used and clearly defined prohibition enacted by the foreign sovereign, we cannot make that assumption where, as here, the interpretation and application of the foreign statute is solely a matter of conjecture. Under these circumstances the important interests served by obtaining appellees' testimony for the purposes of a criminal prosecution under a grant of use immunity far outweigh any protection that might be afforded under the Fifth Amendment. Appellees are therefore foreclosed from asserting their Fifth Amendment privilege as a defense to this contempt proceeding.
We also reject appellee Kondo's assertion that the grant of immunity given to him at trial was invalid on the grounds that it was granted by an "acting" Assistant Attorney General who was authorized to act in the absence of the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, who had been designated to authorize grant of immunity by the Attorney General pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6003(b). Kondo claims that his refusal to testify at the trial was justified on the ground that the delegation under § 6003 was unlawful. This contention is meritless. The authorization in question was carried out pursuant to valid agency procedure, see 28 C.F.R. 0.175, 0.133, and there is no suggestion in the language, history or purposes of the immunity provisions that a more restrictive mode of delegation is required for the protection of witnesses. Unlike the situation in United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 94 S. Ct. 1820, 40 L. Ed. 2d 341 (1974), where the restriction on delegation was designed to protect members of the public against unwarranted invasion of privacy, the requirements here were not intended to protect witnesses but to minimize overuse of immunity grants. Moreover, protection of the witness would undoubtedly preclude the government from claiming the invalidity of the authorization after the witness had waived his constitutional rights in reliance thereon, whereas an opposite result would require each witness to fully litigate the validity of the authorization before relying on it.
The application of the Fifth Amendment privilege to protect against disclosure of evidence relevant to offenses under the law of a foreign country has not been squarely decided by the Supreme Court, and lower courts have arrived at opposite results. Compare In re Parker, 411 F.2d 1067, 1070, vacated as moot sub nom. Parker v. United States, 397 U.S. 96, 90 S. Ct. 819, 25 L. Ed. 2d 81 (1970), and In re Cardassi, 351 F. Supp. 1080, 1085-86 (D.Con.1972)