Opinion ID: 148427
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Grand jury charge.

Text: A different district judge, who charged the grand jury, told the jurors that the prosecutor was duty-bound to present exonerating evidence: If you think that there's evidence out there that might cause you to say well, I don't think probable cause exists, then it's incumbent upon you to hear that evidence as well. As I told you, in most instances, the U.S. Attorneys are duty-bound to present evidence that cuts against what they may be asking you to do if they're aware of that evidence. He added a general encomium to the integrity of federal prosecutors: If past experience is any indication of what to expect in the future, then you can expect that the U.S. Attorneys that will appear in front of you will be candid, they'll be honest, that they'll act in good faith in all matters presented to you. Navarro contends that in combination, this charge amounted to structural error, entitling him to dismissal of the resulting indictment. Grand juries operate secretly. All the judge does, unless a motion comes to him, is swear in and charge the grand jury before it begins its work, and days, weeks, or months later, receive the indictments it hands down. [23] A district judge does not preside in or even enter the grand jury room. [24] The only contact the grand jurors have with the court is the charge the judge gives before they begin, [25] and the use of a room in the courthouse. Most federal judges read or paraphrase a scripted charge from the Benchbook for Federal District Judges published by the Federal Judicial Center, or the Judicial Conference of the United States. These used to differ (the Bench Book omitted the encomium to federal prosecutors' integrity) [26] but now they are the same and include that encomium. [27] The model charge does not state that prosecutors are duty bound to present exonerating evidence. [28] Taken by itself, the language instructing the grand jury that federal prosecutors are, based on past experience, candid, honest, and acting with integrity in the grand jury room, is substantially similar to an instruction we upheld against constitutional challenge in United States v. Navarro-Vargas. [29] While perhaps troubling because of its apparent endorsement of one side in our adversary system, we are bound by Navarro-Vargas to the proposition that although this passage may include unnecessary language, it does not violate the Constitution. [30] The language telling the grand jurors that prosecutors must present exculpatory evidence, though, is flat wrong. And the error is magnified by the encomium to prosecutorial integrity. The judge told the grand jury that U.S. Attorneys are duty-bound to present evidence that cuts against what they may be asking you to do if they are aware of that evidence. That is not the law. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Williams that a prosecutor does not have a duty to present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury when seeking an indictment. [31] We have held that prosecutors have no obligation to disclose `substantial exculpatory evidence' to a grand jury. [32] The exculpatory evidence Navarro says should have been presented if the prosecutor had had such a duty was not his duress defense, but his public authority defense. Navarro's theory is that mens rea was absent because he imported the heroin at the request of a government enforcement officer with the reasonable belief that he was acting as an authorized agent to assist in law enforcement. The prosecutor conceded not having presented any exculpatory evidence to the grand jury, Navarro moved to dismiss the indictment because of the erroneous instruction about duty to present this exculpatory evidence, and the district court denied the motion to dismiss. At trial, the judge instructed the petit jury on the public authority defense. The jury rejected the defense, convicting Navarro. The government argues that the instruction was correct, because (1) the United States Attorney's Manual establishes an internal policy of the Justice Department that prosecutors ought to disclose to the grand jury substantial evidence that directly negates the guilt of the prospective defendant if the prosecutor is personally aware of it, and (2) the district judge knew this and knew a prosecutor could be disciplined if he did not present such evidence, because of his previous work in the United States Attorney's office. We reject this argument. A grand jury should not be told that the law requires that the prosecutor present exculpatory evidence, since it does not. Justice Department policy may change and is not the law. The policy requiring presentation of substantial evidence that directly negates the guilt if the prosecutor is personally aware of it, is narrower than the judge's description of the prosecutor being duty-bound to present evidence that cuts against guilt. The judge's misstatement of the law is especially troubling when combined with the language that the grand jury can count on the candor, honesty, and good faith of the prosecutors who will appear before them. That gave the grand jurors double assurance that they would hear about any exculpatory evidence. Instructing the grand jury that the United States Attorney's office was obligated to present exculpatory evidence if aware of it amounted to an abuse of discretion, since it was incorrect as a matter of law. Since the charge was erroneous, we must decide what to do about it. Navarro urges that an erroneous charge constitutes structural error requiring dismissal of the indictment, so that we must reverse. We do not agree. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a) provides that [a]ny error, defect, irregularity, or variance that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded. [33] This rule applies to errors in grand jury proceedings. [34] If the error were structural, it would not matter that the error was harmless, and we would reverse denial of the motion to dismiss without regard to whether Navarro's substantial rights had been affected. [35] That the grand jury is a constitutionally required part of the structure of federal criminal justice does not bear on whether the error is structural, since structural error is a term of art for error requiring reversal regardless of whether it is prejudicial or harmless, not for error in some way affecting the structure of criminal proceedings. Navarro cites no case holding that an error in the grand jury charge is structural. Neder v. United States [36] holds that except for a very limited class of cases (the Court mentions complete denial of counsel, biased trial judge, racial discrimination in selection of grand jury, denial of self representation at trial, denial of public trial, defective reasonable doubt instruction), all harmless errors including constitutional errors must be disregarded on appeal. [37] We have not addressed the question of remedies for erroneous grand jury charges. In Navarro-Vargas, we held that the grand jury charge was not erroneous, so we had no occasion to decide what we would do if it had been. The Supreme Court has addressed the effect of error in grand jury proceedings. United States v. Mechanik [38] holds that a guilty verdict by a petit jury renders violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(d), which provides who may be present in the grand jury room, harmless. [39] The ratio decidendi is that [t]he Rule protects against the danger that a defendant will be required to defend against a charge for which there is no probable cause to believe him guilty. The petit jury's verdict establishes that probable cause existed. [40] Though Mechanik makes an exception for racial discrimination in the composition of the grand jury requiring dismissal of the indictment based on Vasquez v. Hillery, [41] the reasons for the exception have little force outside the context of racial discrimination in the composition of the grand jury. [42] After Mechanik came down we held in United States v. Benjamin [43] that district court denials of motions to dismiss for such errors were appealable under the collateral order doctrine because appeal would be futile after a verdict, but the Court overruled Benjamin in Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States. [44] Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States [45] adopted the standard urged in Justice O'Connor's concurrence in Mechanik, that for errors brought to the district court's attention prior to the conclusion of the trial, [46] dismissal of the indictment is appropriate only if it is established that the violation substantially influenced the grand jury's decision to indict or if there is grave doubt that the decision to indict was free from the substantial influence of such violations. [47] This standard does not circumvent the harmless-error inquiry prescribed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a), [48] because it requires the defendant to suffer prejudice. Bank of Nova Scotia requires that harmless grand jury error be disregarded but refines the definition of harmless. The Court distinguished Vasquez, racial discrimination in selection of grand jurors, and Ballard v. United States, [49] exclusion of women from the grand jury, but goes no farther in carving out structural error. Even the extensive prosecutorial misconduct in Bank of Nova Scotia justified only contempt and referral for Justice Department and bar discipline as remedies, not dismissal of the indictment. [50] It is clear, under these decisions, that if a motion to dismiss is made before the verdict, the district judge should apply the Bank of Nova Scotia standard, and if the district court grants a motion to dismiss the indictment, the court of appeals should examine the order under that standard. But these two decisions arguably left undecided the remedy where, as here, the error is brought to the district court's attention before the verdict, but the court did not rule on the motion to dismiss until after the jury returned a verdict, or where appeal was taken after such a motion had been denied and a guilty verdict and judgment was entered. We held in United States v. Spillone, [51] where the petit jury's guilty verdict arguably rendered any error harmless, that we review the denial of the motion to dismiss de novo, and avoided choosing between the Mechanik and Bank of Nova Scotia standards because the appellant lost under both standards. Subsequently, in People of the Territory of Guam v. Muna, [52] we held that [o]n appellate review of the case after conviction, the Mechanik standard applies, and a guilty verdict renders error in the presentation to the grand jury harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. [53] Under Muna, the district judge's erroneous charge to the grand jury is therefore harmless. The petit jury never heard the erroneous instruction and could not have been affected by it. The petit jury's conviction of Navarro beyond a reasonable doubt and rejection of his defenses establishes that there was probable cause to charge him, so he could not have been prejudiced. It did not matter that the prosecutor did not present Navarro's public authority defense to the grand jury, because he had none. He had not told his handlers about the heroin smuggling and they had not told him to do it. United States v. Lennick [54] appears to apply both the Mechanik and Bank of Nova Scotia standards, but found the error harmless under either standard, so it was not necessary to choose between them. The Eleventh Circuit likewise avoided deciding whether to apply Mechanik or Bank of Nova Scotia, where the error was harmless under both. [55] The First, [56] Seventh, [57] and Tenth [58] Circuits, however, have held consistently with our decision in Muna that a petit jury's verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt establishes a fortiori that there was probable cause to charge, so grand jury error is rendered harmless by conviction. Our review is controlled by Muna. Even if error in the grand jury proceedings (other than the structural errors denoted in Vasquez and Ballard ) was brought to the attention of the district court prior to trial, where the motion was denied and a guilty verdict was returned, the error is rendered harmless by the verdict. Accordingly, the district judge's error in instructing the grand jury that the government was dutybound to present exculpatory evidence was harmless. Had the motion to dismiss been granted, the Bank of Nova Scotia standard would control review, but since it was denied and the defendant was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt, Mechanik controls and the conviction establishes that the error was harmless. It does not matter whether the Bank of Nova Scotia grave doubt standard would have been met. In Bank of Nova Scotia, although a verdict of guilty had been rendered, the judgment on that verdict had been vacated on appeal, and on remand, the indictment had been dismissed before trial. The Bank of Nova Scotia grave doubt standard applies to dismissal before the verdict. The Mechanik-Muna rule applies after verdict and judgment. AFFIRMED.