Opinion ID: 366306
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Grand Jury Proceedings; Selective Prosecution

Text: 111 In attacks addressed to both sets of convictions, Duncan raises three claims related to grand jury proceedings and one to the basis upon which the Government determined to prosecute him in these cases. 112 Two of his grand jury claims relate to the proceedings leading to his indictment in these cases; the third relates to grand jury proceedings in the F.B.I. eavesdropping case, asserting a spill-over effect prejudicing his trial in these two cases. 113 It is claimed that on two occasions the grand jury proceedings in the instant cases were conducted in violation of the district court's order that all the proceedings be recorded. The record does show that there were two breaks in the continuity of recordation. Beyond that, it is simply impossible to infer prejudice from what might have occurred during the interludes, both of obviously short duration. The defendant would of course have us find them sinister and suggests specific connotations. The Government of course has explanations showing them to have been utterly innocuous. Given the strong presumption of regularity accorded to the findings and deliberations of the grand jury, United States v. Mitchell, 372 F.Supp. 1239, 1248 (S.D.N.Y.1973), we cannot take the leap of inference required to accept the sinister explanations where the innocuous one is at least equally supported on the meager record. Next, attack is made on the use of grand jury subpoenas duces tecum which provided that they could be satisfied by delivery of the described documents to the agents of the F.B.I. This was acceptable grand jury procedure. Direct delivery of a mass of documents to twenty-three laymen would be unproductive if not chaotic. Robert Hawthorne, Inc. v. Director, 406 F.Supp. 1098, 1118 (E.D.Pa.1975). Chief Judge Parker, speaking of the role of the United States Attorney in the proceedings of the grand jury, dealt instructively and dispositively with this claim: In investigations of (complex cases), it is necessary that the grand jury have the aid of counsel, not only in examining witnesses but also in digesting the great mass of evidentiary matter produced before them, which would mean little or nothing to them unless digested and analyzed in the light of applicable legal principles. United States v. United States District Court, 238 F.2d 713, 720-21 (4th Cir. 1956). 114 Defendant's final claim related to grand jury proceedings is more complicated and potentially serious. It stems from an awkward development by which, during the investigative stages of the various Duncan prosecutions, two lawyers from the firm that represented Duncan in these cases came into possession and maintained extended custody of two of the tapes that were eventually disclosed to have been used in electronic surveillance of the F.B.I. agents. Although the circumstances are involved and to some extent obscured in the record, the essential details are clear. On May 2, 1977, early in the investigation, before any indictments had been returned against Duncan, the two lawyers went to the Northwestern Bank Building in North Wilkesboro to obtain some of Duncan's personal bank records for use in their representation of his interests. Included in the materials turned over to them by a bank employee were the two tape cassettes that were then presumably among Duncan's personal records and effects. The lawyers took the tapes, with other materials, back to their Greensboro office, and they remained there in custody of the firm until eventually turned over to the United States District Court on August 11, 1977. At the outset of their custody, the lawyers apparently did not know the nature of the tapes, nor of their use in the surveillance operation. During the course of one of their several unsuccessful efforts to listen to the tapes they inadvertently recorded over some portions. Sometime in early August, the lawyers apparently notified a United States Attorney that they had the tapes. This led shortly thereafter to a grand jury subpoena for the tapes, and this to a hearing before a United States District Judge, following which the tapes were turned over to the court under seal pending further orders. The link-up of these tapes to the surveillance of the F.B.I. agents was of course critical to the Government's investigation and to grand jury consideration of the F.B.I. bugging indictment. Only the lawyers could account directly for the details of their procurement in the first instance from Duncan's custody, their custody over a substantial ensuing period, and their condition during that period. For this reason the Government subpoenaed the two lawyers to testify before the grand jury. The lawyers appeared but declined, on the grounds of work-product and general attorney-client privilege, to answer most questions put to them. The privilege claims were then presented to a United States District Judge who, in camera, ordered that answers be given to all those questions propounded that he determined were not within the scope of the privileges invoked. The lawyers complied with the order, and testified to the basic facts concerning their custody of the tapes. 115 Duncan later pled guilty in the F.B.I. bugging case, and the lawyers did not testify in either the grand jury proceedings or at the trial of the I.R.S. bugging and misapplication cases. Duncan's claim on this appeal is that by its conduct relating to his lawyers' custody of the tapes, including their compelled testimony before the grand jury in a separate case, the Government has deprived him of fair trial rights entitling him to reversal. 116 The precise focus of this contention is not clear. To the extent it simply challenges grand jury consideration of testimony provided by his attorneys under compulsion of subpoena in another, though somewhat related, case, there is simply no merit to it. See United States v. Kernodle, 367 F.Supp. at 853. 117 The contention runs wider than this. Duncan claims that the ultimate effect of the Government's conduct vis-a-vis his attorneys was to compel discovery of evidence otherwise unavailable, and to deny him the effective assistance of counsel. The discovery claim is without merit. The grand jury has wide latitude in the evidence it may compel, and this evidence given in response to grand jury subpoena was directly relevant to the indictment under consideration. 118 The assistance of counsel claim requires more discussion. The gist of this claim is that the Government's continued assertion of its intention to call Duncan's lawyers as witnesses in all three cases, coupled with a concomitant continuing threat of their disqualification to represent him, denied him their effective assistance. 119 At the outset, we characterized these developments involving Duncan's lawyers as awkward. There is no doubt that this awkwardness created special problems for their representation here. We cannot say that it made their representation ineffective to a degree requiring reversal of these convictions. In fact, we think the record reveals an admirable handling of a situation, not of the Government's making, by the two district judges who dealt with it, resulting in no rationally discernible prejudice to defendant on this score. 120 When the disqualification possibility arose, a conference of attorneys presided over by the chief judge and judge assigned these cases for trial was held to address it. At that time the Government was standing on the possibility that it might have to call Duncan's lawyers as witnesses in all the cases then pending. The possible relevance of their testimony in the I.R.S. and misapplication cases, though somewhat attenuated, could not be dismissed. For this reason, the district judge who was asked to rule in advance that the lawyers' testimony in those cases would be inadmissible declined to do so. Instead, the judges recommended to Duncan that unless a satisfactory stipulation could be worked out to obviate the need for the lawyers' testimony in the pending cases, he should employ stand-by counsel. No stipulation was ever worked out. As indicated, the F.B.I. case was not tried and, in the event, neither of the lawyers involved was called to testify in these other two cases. Duncan contends that nevertheless the continuing uncertainty about their status inevitably impinged unfairly upon his right to counsel. We can only say that the record that we have been required to scrutinize with great care on this appeal reveals unabated advocacy of the highest order of tenacity, imagination, skill, dedication and thoroughness on the part of defendant's counsel. We are bound to conclude that whatever the pressure created upon them, Duncan's lawyers were not inhibited by it to any degree discernible to the professional eye. 121 In the last of defendant's assertions of error, he claims that he was entitled to a hearing on the question of selective prosecution. The Government is given broad discretion in selecting whom it will prosecute. That discretion only runs afoul of the equal protection clause if it is based on the use of an unjustifiable standard such as race or religion, Oyler v. Boles,368 U.S. 448, 456, 82 S.Ct. 501, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962), or if it is exercised in response to the defendant's exercise of a protected right, United States v. Falk, 479 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1973) (en banc); United States v. Crowthers,456 F.2d 1074 (4th Cir. 1972) (Craven, J.). Defendant's allegations of impermissible selectivity do not satisfy the criteria. Absent sufficient allegations properly raising the issue, defendant was not entitled to a hearing. 122 Following two lengthy trials conducted by a careful trial judge, two separate juries of defendant's peers have found him guilty of the offenses with which he was properly charged, and we find no reversible error in the two proceedings. 123 AFFIRMED.