Opinion ID: 572467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Grand Jury Abuse

Text: 69 The defendants alleged abuse and prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury. The government denied the allegation and provided the grand jury transcript for review by the district court. The defense moved that the transcript be released to them for their inspection. The district court denied the motion. 70 In order for a party to gain access to the normally inaccessible transcripts of proceedings before a grand jury, there must be a showing of particularized need. United States v. Edelson, 581 F.2d 1290, 1291 (7th Cir.1978). Mere unsupported speculation of possible prosecutorial abuse does not meet the particularized need standard. Id. at 1291. To begin with, the defense, in its brief, has not pointed to anything in the record which might suggest that the prosecutor engaged in improper conduct before the grand jury. We are left with only the defense's suspicious hunch, as the following excerpt from the defense's brief revealed: 71 Here, the Government has never denied, nor controverted defendants' allegations of abuse. Appellants have never viewed the grand jury instructions on the law. Appellants reason that based on the indictment itself, which does not contain a single, specific fact, the grand jury could not have been provided with anything other than erroneous, inadequate or misleading instructions on the elements, including venue, of the crimes charged against each defendant. The Government's failure to deny or controvert the defense allegations should be considered as an admission of defendants' allegations. 72 (Joint Br. p. 75.) 73 If a defendant wishes to determine whether the grand jury minutes contain any information inconsistent with the evidence offered by the government, the proper procedure [is] to ask the district judge to examine the minutes in camera and report on the record whether they contained such inconsistent information. Edelson, 581 F.2d at 1292. The defense made the request, and the court made the inspection and found no alleged improprieties. We find no reversible error.