Opinion ID: 503754
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: illegal evidence before the grand jury

Text: 93 The tape of the conversation between Vest and Waters was played to the grand jury in violation of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2510-2520 (1982 & Supp. III 1985). See Vest I, 813 F.2d at 477; 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2515 (1982). 10 Vest presents two arguments why this unlawful act requires dismissal of the indictment: he was prejudiced because the grand jury would not have returned the indictment but for the illegal evidence, and the government's illegal conduct warrants the exercise of our supervisory powers to deter future misconduct. 94 The government contends that the first argument is foreclosed by United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 106 S.Ct. 938, 89 L.Ed.2d 50 (1986), which held that the government's violation of Fed.R.Crim.P. 6 in grand jury proceedings was rendered harmless by the defendant's subsequent conviction by a petit jury. See also United States v. Bucci, 839 F.2d 825, 831 (1st Cir.1988) ([W]e do not overlook United States v. Mechanik, which recognizes that at least some 'errors, defects, irregularities or variances' attending the grand jury proceeding may be rendered harmless by the verdict of the petit jury. (citation omitted)). However, we need not address this contention because Vest has failed to show that he was prejudiced before the grand jury by the prosecution's use of the illegal tape. The district court, in denying Vest's motion to dismiss the indictment, found that the indictment was fully supported ... entirely apart from the suppressed tape. Vest has the burden of showing that the district court is in error. However, the grand jury minutes are not part of the record on appeal, and thus Vest has presented no basis on which we can even begin to consider whether the district court erred. See Cruz-Sanchez v. Rivera-Cordero, 835 F.2d 947, 949 (1st Cir.1987). This argument, therefore, fails on its own terms. 95 Vest's second argument is that we should exercise our supervisory powers in order to deter future violations of Title III. Even under Mechanik, the federal courts still have the responsibility to supervise the government's use of its prosecutorial powers. See United States v. Bucci, 839 F.2d at 832 (1st Cir.1988) ([W]e recognize that there could be allegations of grand jury abuse so troubling as to warrant an assessment, under Mechanik, of whether the 'societal interest in deterring the type of abuse alleged' outweighed the 'societal costs of retrial....'  (quoting United States v. Larouche Campaign, 829 F.2d 250, 253 (1st Cir.1987))). 96 To warrant dismissal of an indictment, a prosecutor's misconduct must amount to serious and blatant prosecutorial misconduct that distorts the integrity of the judicial process. United States v. Ogden, 703 F.2d 629, 636 (1st Cir.1983). Here, although the tape was ultimately ruled to be improper evidence, Vest I, 813 F.2d 477, we do not find the action of presenting it to the grand jury to have been serious and blatant misconduct. Under the government's interpretation of Title III, the tape would have been legal. That interpretation was not frivolous, and the issue had not, at the time, been addressed by a federal appellate court. The one district court opinion addressing the issue lent support to the legality of the government's action. See United States v. Traficant, 558 F.Supp. 996, 1001-02 (N.D.Ohio 1983); Vest I, 813 F.2d at 483 (rejecting the conclusion reached in Traficant ). In addition, three days before our decision in Vest I, another federal appeals court issued an opinion which supported the interpretation of the law advocated by the government. 11 Thus the government was acting in accord with a reasonable if incorrect construction of the law. Such conduct does not threaten harm to the integrity of the judicial system. To penalize the government when it acts in good faith is unlikely to have a deterrent effect on future misconduct. Cf. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 918, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3418, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (We have frequently questioned whether the exclusionary rule can have any deterrent effect when the offending officers acted in the objectively reasonable belief that their conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment.). 97 The case on which Vest relies is not to the contrary. In United States v. Brodson, 528 F.2d 214 (7th Cir.1975), Justice Clark, sitting by designation, authored an opinion affirming a district court's decision to dismiss an indictment as a remedy to the government's violation of Title III. However, in contrast to this case, the government's actions could be characterized as blatant misconduct. First, the court found no merit in the government's argument that it had complied with Title III. Id. at 215. Second, the government agents in Brodson had conducted the illegal wiretapping, while in this case, Jesse Waters performed the illegal taping, and the government used the evidence given them by Waters. Although the government's use of the tape was itself illegal, see Vest I, there is a greater insult to the judicial process when the government itself conducts the illegal wiretap. We agree with Justice Clark that dismissal of the indictment is the ultimate sanction and a drastic remedy. Id. at 216. The present case does not warrant the drastic remedy of such dismissal. 98 Vest also argues that because the government violated a statute, rather than, for example, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure as in Mechanik, the indictment must be dismissed. We find this unpersuasive. The Supreme Court has stated that even a constitutional violation does not automatically require dismissal of an indictment. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 345, 94 S.Ct. 613, 618, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974) (stating that a valid indictment is not subject to challenge even if it is based on information obtained in violation of defendant's fifth amendment rights). If Vest is suggesting that Title III itself mandates that the indictment must be dismissed, we find no support for the proposition in the statute. The language of the statute contains no such rule. Furthermore, in In re Ellsberg, 446 F.2d 954 (1st Cir.1971) (two-judge panel), this court examined the legislative history of Title III, and note[d] the intent of Congress not to change the historic bar against a defendant's impeaching a grand jury indictment. Id. at 959. In conclusion, although the government violated Title III when it played the tape to the grand jury, we do not find the presence of the type of misconduct which warrants dismissal of the indictment. 12 99 Affirmed.