Opinion ID: 354127
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The NLRB Incident

Text: 33 In the course of the evidentiary hearing on the motion for a new trial, a number of documents were produced which dealt with Cox's alleged 1972 attempt to bribe Stanley J. Fender, a Field Examiner for the National Labor Relations Board. The documents included an NLRB letter to the U.S. Attorney requesting an investigation of the charge, an FBI report on the investigation that was subsequently conducted, and the U.S. Attorney's declination of prosecution. In addition, Fender produced at the hearing his handwritten account of a statement that Cox had provided (but refused to sign or even read) on the fraudulent scheme at Burns Harbor. 34 It is Weidman's claim once again that the Government's failure to produce the NLRB file containing these documents in the face of a specific request violated its duties of disclosure under Brady and Agurs. Of particular importance, according to the appellant, is Fender's handwritten account of Cox's statement, for that account makes no mention of Weidman's name in describing the Burns Harbor fraud. In addition, however, the appellant also insists that details on the alleged bribery attempt could have been useful in impeaching the witness. 35 In the factual setting of this case, the appellant's argument raises some major questions concerning the scope of the prosecutor's constitutional obligation to produce evidence favorable to the defendant. The Supreme Court's decision in Brady held that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1197. This holding, in turn, was grounded on certain basic elements of fairness that are implicit in the due process requirements of a fair trial. More particularly, the Court indicated that a fundamental notion of fairness in criminal trials demands that the state in its zeal to convict a defendant not suppress evidence that might exonerate him. United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 116, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2403, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (Marshall, J., dissenting). 36 It seems clear that the essential unfairness found by the Court in the Brady setting is directly bound up with the fact of suppression that is, some act or failure to act on the part of the prosecution which renders material exculpatory evidence unavailable to the accused. 11 Indeed, in this element of suppression lies the constitutional basis for distinguishing Brady  material from all other kinds of newly discovered evidence. For if the evidence is available to the accused from some source other than the prosecution, and if he is aware of both the evidence and its source, he could in no way be harmed by the prosecution's failure to produce the documents. As a result, there could be no basis for finding unfairness, and, hence, no basis for finding a due process violation. 37 In this case, the NLRB file on Walter Cox was not rendered unavailable to Weidman by the prosecution's failure to produce it. The file, as it turned out, was not in the hands of the prosecution, nor, apparently, was the prosecution even aware of the alleged bribery attempt before Weidman requested the file three weeks after the trial had begun. The defendant, however, was well aware that Cox had been accused of attempting to bribe the official; indeed, he cross-examined Cox on this very point. 12 And, what is equally important, he could have obtained the evidence that he now claims should have been produced under Brady by simply subpoenaing the file from the NLRB (a nonprosecutorial agency of the government) and subpoenaing Fender himself. 13 This, in fact, is precisely what he did at the evidentiary hearing on the motion for a new trial. 38 Whatever the explanation for the defendant's failure to pursue this course earlier and none is offered on appeal we cannot agree that he was denied a fair trial by the failure of the prosecution to produce the evidence. The file (and, most importantly, the statement that Cox gave to the NLRB official) was not in the hands of the prosecution; the accused was well aware of its existence; it was available to the accused from a nonprosecutorial source. On these facts, it cannot be said that the prosecution has engaged in a suppression of evidence within the meaning of Brady. 39 The appellant also argues that the prosecution's failure to produce the statement that Cox gave to the NLRB official violated its obligations under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500, which provides in relevant part: 40 (b) After a witness called by the United States has testified on direct examination, the court shall, on motion of the defendant, order the United States to produce any statement (as hereinafter defined) of the witness in the possession of the United States which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified. 41 (e) The term 'statement', as used in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section in relation to any witness called by the United States, means 42 (1) a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him; or 43 (2) a stenographic, mechanical, electrical, or other recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by said witness to an agent of the Government and recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement. 44 It is by no means clear that Fender's handwritten account of the interview with Cox (which Cox refused to sign or even read) is a statement within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e)(2). Nor is it clear that the Jencks Act requires the prosecution to discover and produce statements that are in the possession of other, nonprosecutorial agencies of the government. Indeed, on this point, we find the view of the Third Circuit to be a persuasive one: 45 In speaking of statements 'in the possession of the United States', we understand the statute to require production only of statements possessed by the prosecutorial arm of the federal government. See Augenblick v. United States, 377 F.2d 586, 597-98, 180 Ct.Cl. 131 (1967), rev'd on other grounds, 393 U.S. 348, 89 S.Ct. 528, 21 L.Ed.2d 537 (1969); United States v. Ehrlichman, 389 F.Supp. 95 (D.C.Cir.1974). 46 United States v. Dansker, 537 F.2d 40, 61 (3rd Cir. 1976). 47 However, even if we were to resolve these questions in the appellant's favor and hold that the Jencks Act required the production of the document, we could not agree that its nonproduction so prejudiced Weidman as to warrant a new trial. Jencks Act disclosures may be used by the defense only for the purpose of impeachment, United States v. Harris, 458 F.2d 670 (5th Cir. 1972), and this document could only have been of marginal value to the appellant's defense as material for impeaching Cox. Since the statement did not pretend to be an exhaustive chronicle of the Burns Harbor mail fraud, there simply is no necessary inconsistency between its omission of Weidman's name and those portions of Cox's subsequent testimony that may have implicated the appellant. Perhaps more importantly, as was noted earlier, it appears from the record that Cox's testimony was not an integral part of the Government's effort to establish Weidman's involvement. Rather, the prosecution relied on other witnesses for this purpose, while using Cox's testimony to establish the existence of the general scheme and the ways in which it operated. Finally, as was also noted earlier, Cox was thoroughly impeached on other grounds: he was presented as a convicted felon, a central figure in the mail fraud scheme, and a witness who had secured immunity from the Government in exchange for his cooperation; moreover, his biased attitude toward Weidman became evident in the course of his testimony. In the light of all this, we cannot agree that the nonproduction of the statement so prejudiced the appellant as to require a new trial. 48 In sum, then, we have carefully examined each of the appellant's arguments and find no basis for granting a new trial. The judgment of the district court is therefore 49 AFFIRMED.