Opinion ID: 186155
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Production of Jencks Material

Text: 24 Stanfield also argues that the district court erred in handling his request for the production of certain documents before the cross-examination of Probation Officer Shaw. Under the procedural rule that governs Jencks material, the prosecution was required to produce, on motion of the defendant, any statement of the witness that was in [its] possession and that relate[d] to the subject matter of the witness's testimony. FED.R.CRIM.P. 26.2(a); see also FED.R.CRIM.P. 32.1(e) (making Rule 26.2(a)-(d), (f) applicable to probation revocation hearings). The defense made a timely motion for the production of the documents, HOV Tr. at 27, and Shaw began to look through the documents he had brought to the hearing. The district court ruled on two occasions that certain documents were not producible. First, Shaw offered to turn over certain unidentified documents, saying, This is stuff which is not part of this file but was brought with me. You are welcomed to see it. HOV Tr. at 29. The prosecution did not object to the production of the documents, but the court immediately stated, If it's not part of your file she is not welcome to see it. Now, let's speed this up please. Id. Shaw continued leafing through the materials, describing each document; at one point he stated that some of the documents were confidential memorandums to the court. Id. at 29-30. Again without waiting for any objection from the prosecution, the court ruled that [t]hese memorandums to the court are not producible. Speed it up. Id. at 30. 25 The district court had an affirmative duty, Saunders v. United States, 316 F.2d 346, 349 (D.C.Cir.1963), to engage in an adequate inquiry into the nature of the documents before ruling against Jencks Act production, United States v. North Am. Reporting, Inc., 740 F.2d 50, 55 (D.C.Cir.1984); see United States v. Holton, 116 F.3d 1536, 1546 (D.C.Cir.1997) (same). Neither the Jencks Act nor Rule 26.2 specifies a particular procedure for determining whether documents need to be produced, but the typical practice in the case of an objection to production is for the district court to examine the documents in camera or to question the witness about them. See Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 108, 96 S.Ct. 1338, 1347, 47 L.Ed.2d 603 (1976) (We have recognized that a Government objection to production may require that the trial court inspect documents or hold a hearing to gather extrinsic evidence bearing on the extent to which the documents are ... producible); Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 354, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1225, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959) (we approve the practice of having the Government submit the statement to the trial judge for an in camera determination); North Am. Reporting, 740 F.2d at 55; see also FED. R.CRIM.P. 26.2(c) (If the party who called the witness claims that the statement contains information that is privileged or does not relate to the subject matter of the witness's testimony, the court must inspect the statement in camera.). Here the government did not object, because there was no occasion for it to do so — the district court ruled against production of the stuff which is not part of this file and the confidential memorandums to the court without awaiting an objection, without inquiring further into the nature of the material, and without examining the documents themselves. 26 This course puts us in the position of having to review whether it was proper to decline to order production of the documents without knowing very much about them. We do not know, for example, what the stuff which is not part of this file is, or why Shaw had it with him on the stand if it was indeed not part of this file. Nor is the nature of the memoranda to the court clear. With respect to both categories of material, there is a dispute over the pertinent question of whether the documents satisfy the criterion of Rule 26.2 that they be in the possession of the attorney for the government at the time of the hearing, see FED.R.CRIM.P. 26.2(a). The government argues that there is absolutely no indication that the confidential memoranda from Shaw to the court were ever in its possession, Appellee Br. at 24, but Stanfield contends that there is clear evidence that at least some part of the probation officer's file was in the possession of the prosecutor at some point before the hearing, Reply Br. at 6. Stanfield argues that several of the government's exhibits at the hearing — letters from Shaw to Stanfield and letters from the Frayser counselors to Shaw — must have been drawn from Shaw's files, see HOV Tr. at 6-7, 8, 11, 14, 19-20, suggesting that government counsel had access to that file. 27 If the documents were in the record on appeal, we would have to decide whether to examine them ourselves to determine whether they should have been produced. Compare, e.g., United States v. Chitwood, 457 F.2d 676, 678 (6th Cir.1972) (district court wisely ordered the reports to be made part of the record, sealed for appellate review.... We have examined [them] carefully), with United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d 908, 920 (4th Cir.1980) (we decline the district judge's invitation to inspect the documents ourselves, and, instead, remand the case), and United States v. O'Brien, 444 F.2d 1082, 1087 (7th Cir.1971) (remanding for district court to examine sealed documents). Given that the documents are not available to us, we have no occasion to depart from the general rule that the initial determination of whether ... documents constitute producible statements under the [Jencks Act] should be made in the district court. North Am. Reporting, 740 F.2d at 56; see also Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 109 n. 15, 96 S.Ct. at 1347 n. 15 (examination of documents to determine whether they are producible is initially a task for the District Judge); Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d at 920 (district court's familiar[ity] with the other Jencks Act material makes it better equipped than we to decide whether any Jencks Act statements included within the documents are merely cumulative). 28 On remand, the district court should take such steps as are necessary to fill in these record deficiencies to allow adequate review of Stanfield's claims under Rule 26.2(a). Whether through examination of the documents at issue or through other means, the court should develop a record concerning whether the documents were producible under the Rule. See United States v. Cole, 617 F.2d 151, 153 (5th Cir.1980); Saunders, 316 F.2d at 349. If the court concludes that any of the withheld documents should have been produced, it must then determine whether the error was harmless. See Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 111, 96 S.Ct. at 1348; North Am. Reporting, 740 F.2d at 56; see also Holton, 116 F.3d at 1547; United States v. Lam Kwong-Wah, 924 F.2d 298, 310 (D.C.Cir.1991). As we have noted, the harmless-error doctrine must be strictly applied in Jencks cases, North Am. Reporting, 740 F.2d at 56 n. 8 (citing Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 111 n. 21, 96 S.Ct. at 1348-49 n. 21), and the court cannot `speculate whether [the material] could have been utilized effectively' at the revocation hearing. Id. (quoting Clancy v. United States, 365 U.S. 312, 316, 81 S.Ct. 645, 647, 5 L.Ed.2d 574 (1961)). In accordance with this court's approach in North American Reporting, 740 F.2d at 56, we do not vacate the district court's findings of probation violations; rather, if the court finds error that was not harmless, it should vacate its judgment and conduct a new hearing. See Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 111-12, 96 S.Ct. at 1348-49; Saunders, 316 F.2d at 350.