Opinion ID: 151577
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Jencks Act Challenge

Text: Defendants argue that under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500, the Government should have turned over 302s that the FBI produced following interviews with witness Charles Gilman, even though the Government had already produced the notes from which the reports were created—notes that Charles Gilman had adopted as his own statement. “A district court’s Jencks Act rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Cardenas-Mendoza, 579 F.3d 1024, 1031 (9th Cir. 2009). 10 On its own terms, the Jencks Act applies only to a “statement . . . of the witness,” not a report derived from such a statement. 18 U.S.C. § 3500(b). In this case, Charles Gilman verified the notes as his own statement when they were read back to him, but he never adopted a 302 report based on those notes. We have held that the Government need not produce interview notes as long as it turns over a report based on those notes and the witness has adopted the report as his own statement. See United States v. Reed, 575 F.3d 900 (9th Cir. 2009). The same reasoning applies, a fortiori, where the verified notes themselves are turned over in lieu of any subsequently created reports that were not verified by the witness. See United States v. Boshell, 952 F.2d 1101, 1104–5 (9th Cir. 1991) (holding that there was no Jencks Act violation where the relevant notes “were not a substantially verbatim recital of [the witness’s] oral statement, nor were they seen, signed or adopted by [the witness]”). Even if the district court had erred in declining to order the disclosure of the 302s, reversal would be inappropriate in the absence of prejudice to defendants. See Boshell, 952 F.2d at 1105. Because the interview notes that defendants received included Charles Gilman’s substantially verbatim statements, defendants were not prejudiced by the Government’s failure to produce formal summaries of those statements. See United States v. Riley, 189 F.3d 802, 807 (9th Cir. 1999) 11 (“[W]e have not required that testimony be stricken where a substitute for the missing statement was available.”).