Opinion ID: 745346
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: right to a target letter1

Text: 18 Myers argues that because he was a target of the grand jury investigation, he had a constitutional right to a letter informing him of his target status prior to his testimony. The Supreme Court, however, has rejected this very argument. In United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 189, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 1819, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977), the Court stated: Because target witness status neither enlarges nor diminishes the constitutional protection against compelled self-incrimination, potential-defendant warnings add nothing of value to protection of Fifth Amendment rights. See also United States v. Gillespie, 974 F.2d 796, 800 (7th Cir.1992) ([The defendant] concedes--as he must--that target warnings are not constitutionally mandated.) (citing Washington, 431 U.S. at 189, 97 S.Ct. at 1819); United States v. Goodwin, 57 F.3d 815, 818 (9th Cir.1995) (same); United States v. Pacheco-Ortiz, 889 F.2d 301, 307 (1st Cir.1989) (same). In light of Washington's pronouncements, Myers's argument that he had a constitutional right to a target letter fails.
19 It is the Department of Justice's policy to provide a letter and an Advice of Rights form to a target or subject of the grand jury investigation, warning the witness of his status as a target or subject and of his rights before the grand jury. See U.S. Dep't of Justice Manual § 9-11.150 (1992-1 Supp.). 2 The DOJ Manual also requires that the Advice of Rights warnings be read to the witness immediately prior to the witness's testimony before the grand jury. Id. A target is defined by the DOJ Manual as a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him/her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant. Id. The Manual defines a subject of an investigation as a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury's investigation. Id. In this case, it is clear that Myers did not receive a target letter, J.A. at 41, and it appears that he did not receive an Advice of Rights form, J.A. at 32-34. The government, however, argues that is was not required to send either of these items to Myers. It asserts that Myers was not a putative defendant but that he was arguably a suspect and that [i]t is not clear defendant was a target, although the government may have believed defendant was somehow criminally involved with Kelvin Smith. Appellee's Br. at 4, 8-9. 20 As an initial matter, we note the ambiguous nature of the government's statements in light of the fact that under the DOJ Manual, a witness cannot be a target without being a putative defendant. More importantly, we believe that Myers was both a target and a subject under the DOJ Manual's definitions. In addition to the government's admission in its brief that Myers was arguably a suspect and that the government may have believed defendant was somehow criminally involved with Kelvin Smith[,] an AUSA testified at the hearing to suppress Myers's grand jury testimony that part of the reason Myers was placed in front of the grand jury was because he was being investigated. J.A. at 47-48. Additionally, state charges that were then pending against Myers for the conduct that formed the basis of the federal charges were dismissed ten months prior to his grand jury testimony to allow the federal investigation to continue unhindered by the state proceeding. J.A. at 33. According to the AUSA, federal officials normally request that a state matter be dismissed if it appeared that a matter was going to be brought to federal court for further investigation and/or indictment. J.A. at 45-46. Even more telling, the overwhelming majority of the questions asked Myers at the grand jury hearing concerned his own behavior and actions, not those of Kelvin Smith. Supp. J.A. at 15-27. 21 Because Myers was both a target and a subject of the grand jury investigation, the government violated the mandate in the DOJ manual. Nevertheless, a violation by the government of its internal operating procedures, on its own, does not create a basis for suppressing Myers's grand jury testimony. [T]he U.S. Attorney's Manual 'is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any matter civil or criminal.'  United States v. Goodwin, 57 F.3d 815, 818 (9th Cir.1995) (quoting United States v. Lorenzo, 995 F.2d 1448, 1453 (9th Cir.1993) (in turn quoting U.S. Dep't of Justice Manual § 1-1.100)). Additionally, any interest a target or subject may have in receiving the Advice of Rights form does not, on its own, rise to the level of a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. See United States v. Long, 977 F.2d 1264, 1276 (8th Cir.1992) ([The witness's] complaint that he did not receive the Advice of Rights form amounts to nothing more than a claim that he should have been advised of his rights before appearing before the grand jury. This asserted interest does not rise to the level of a liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.); Goodwin, 57 F.3d at 818 (same). 22 In exceptional cases, our supervisory power exists as a tool to control prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury. In the exercise of its supervisory authority, a federal court 'may, within limits, formulate procedural rules not specifically required by the Constitution or the Congress.'  Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 254, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2373, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988) (quoting United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 505, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1978, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983)). The Second Circuit, in fact, in United States v. Jacobs, 547 F.2d 772, 778 (2d Cir.1976), cert. dismissed, 436 U.S. 31, 98 S.Ct. 1873, 56 L.Ed.2d 53 (1978), exercised its supervisory powers to suppress grand jury testimony that was obtained from a target who was not given the Advice of Rights form and the accompanying warnings required by the DOJ Manual. In two cases subsequent to Jacobs, however, the Supreme Court has severely curtailed the ability of the federal courts to fashion remedies based upon their supervisory powers. 23 The Court in Bank of Nova Scotia held that a federal court may not invoke supervisory power to circumvent the harmless-error inquiry prescribed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a). 487 U.S. at 254, 108 S.Ct. at 2373. One of the rationales enunciated by the Court was that misconduct of the non-prejudicial variety can be corrected by focus[ing] on the culpable individual rather than granting a windfall to the unprejudiced defendant. Id. at 263, 108 S.Ct. at 2378. 3 24 United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 112 S.Ct. 1735, 118 L.Ed.2d 352 (1992), imposed further limits on the federal courts' supervisory powers. In that case, the district court had dismissed an indictment because the government failed to disclose substantial exculpatory evidence in its possession to the grand jury. Despite a Tenth Circuit rule and provisions in the DOJ Manual 4 requiring the prosecutor to disclosure substantial exculpatory evidence about which the prosecutor is aware, a sharply divided Court held that the district court had improperly used its supervisory powers. Id. at 47, 112 S.Ct. at 1741. Essentially removing all general supervisory authority over the grand jury from the federal courts, the Court stated: [W]e think it clear, that, as a general matter at least, no such 'supervisory' judicial authority [over grand jury functioning] exists, and that the disclosure rule applied here exceeded the Tenth Circuit's authority[,] id., and that any power federal courts may have to fashion, on their own initiative, rules of grand jury procedure is a very limited one, not remotely comparable to the power they maintain over their own proceedings. Id. at 50, 112 S.Ct. at 1743. The central factor driving the Court's opinion was its understanding of the grand jury's position in our constitutional structure. The Court described the grand jury as a constitutional fixture in its own right[,] id. at 47, 112 S.Ct. at 1741 (quotation marks and citations omitted), and as a device that belongs to no branch of the institutional Government. Id. Because neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented, id. at 52, 112 S.Ct. at 1744 the Court reasoned that [i]mposing upon the prosecutor a legal obligation to present exculpatory evidence in his possession would be incompatible with this system. Id. 25 Justices Stevens, Blackmun, O'Connor, and Thomas dissented, finding the majority approach difficult to comprehend. Id. at 65, 112 S.Ct. at 1751. 26 We do not protect the integrity and independence of the grand jury by closing our eyes to the countless forms of prosecutorial misconduct that may occur inside the secrecy of the grand jury room. After all, the grand jury is not merely an investigatory body; it also serves as a protector of citizens against arbitrary and oppressive governmental action. ... It blinks reality to say that the grand jury can adequately perform this important historic role if it is intentionally misled by the prosecutor--on whose knowledge of the law and facts of the underlying criminal investigation the jurors will, of necessity, rely. 27 Id. at 68, 112 S.Ct. at 1753 (internal citation omitted) (Stevens, J., dissenting). 5 28 The First and the Seventh Circuits more recently have each dealt with the issue of the extent to which their supervisory powers could be used to suppress grand jury testimony when the government failed to comply with the relevant DOJ manual provisions regarding grand jury witnesses. In United States v. Pacheco-Ortiz, 889 F.2d 301 (1st Cir.1989), a case in which no warnings of any kind were given, the court concluded that the lack of an affirmative misrepresentation of the witness's status by the government and the seemingly innocuous grand jury testimony by the witness tipped the scales against a finding that the evidence should have been suppressed. Id. at 309-10. Employing the harmless-error analysis found in Bank of Nova Scotia, the court also concluded that the defendant was not harmed ... in a way that warrant[ed] action adverse to the judgment on appeal. Id. at 311. The court was still concerned about the AUSA's behavior, however, and stated that it would, in the appropriate case, refer violations of the DOJ Manual to the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. Id. 29 In United States v. Gillespie, 974 F.2d 796 (7th Cir.1992), although the government gave the witness an Advice of Rights form, it failed to warn the witness of his target status and failed to give the warnings orally immediately prior to the witness's testimony. Even with these failings, however, the Seventh Circuit refused to invoke its supervisory powers to suppress the grand jury testimony when there was no indication that the government acted in bad faith and the defendant had consulted with an attorney prior to appearing before the grand jury. Id. at 800-03. Recognizing the limits imposed by the recent Supreme Court cases, the court stated that [f]ew restraints protect targets appearing before grand juries, particularly in the wake of Williams. Id. at 801. Nonetheless, the court was troubled by the government's failure adequately to warn the defendant of his rights: We are faced, then with 'the violation of a policy which does not justify a case-related judicial sanction and yet which appears immune to expressions of judicial dissatisfaction.'  Id. at 802 (quoting Pacheco-Ortiz, 889 F.2d at 310-11). Following the First Circuit in Pacheco-Ortiz, the Seventh Circuit warned that federal prosecutors should not be surprised if, in future cases, the court refers violators of the Department's internal policy to the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility. Id. at 802. 30 We, too, are troubled by the government's violations of the DOJ Manual. Although Myers was given oral warnings immediately prior to his testimony, the government should apply all its rules in a consistent manner with respect to targets appearing before the grand jury. Additionally, unlike the situations in Pancheo-Ortiz and Gillespie, Myers's grand jury testimony was not innocuous, and he had not first consulted with an attorney before testifying. We, unfortunately, feel constrained by the Supreme Court's recent decisions, especially Williams. If, as a general matter, no such 'supervisory' judicial authority exists, Williams, 504 U.S. at 47, 112 S.Ct. at 1741 the government's failure to follow its own internal policy, without more, does not present an exceptional circumstance justifying the implementation of this power. Although a distinction could be made between Williams and the present dispute in that appellant in this case only seeks to have his grand jury testimony suppressed, not his indictment dismissed, we believe the Court's decision to restrict the scope of the federal courts' supervisory powers was not limited to the particular remedy of dismissal of an indictment. See Gillespie, 974 F.2d at 801 (Although suppression of testimony is a less extreme sanction than the outright dismissal of the indictment contemplated in Williams and Nova Scotia, the reasoning undergirding those decisions is equally applicable here. The Supreme Court has delineated a very limited scope for our supervisory powers....). Because Myers has not produced any evidence of bad faith on the part of the government and because he has not pointed to, nor have we found, any other exceptional circumstances, we cannot invoke our supervisory powers in this dispute to suppress Myers's grand jury testimony. This conclusion, however, does not resolve whether the warnings were adequate as a matter of constitutional law.