Opinion ID: 70762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District court's dismissal of the indictment

Text: 19 Because sufficient evidence supports the district court's factual findings, we now address whether the district court properly dismissed the grand jury indictment. The government argues that the district court improperly dismissed the indictment because the court made no findings of flagrant abuse or egregious prosecutorial misconduct. We find no merit to this argument. Federal courts possess the power and duty to dismiss federal indictments obtained in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. United States v. Pabian, 704 F.2d 1533, 1536 (11th Cir.1983). The Fifth Amendment provides that [n]o person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. U.S. Const. amend. V. The Fifth Amendment's privilege against compulsory self-incrimination may be invoked when acting as a witness in any investigation, to give testimony which might tend to show that [the witness] had committed a crime. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 562, 12 S.Ct. 195, 198, 35 L.Ed. 1110 (1892). Its sole concern is to afford protection against being 'forced to give testimony leading to the infliction of penalties affixed to ... criminal acts.'  Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 453, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 1661, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (quoting Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 438-39, 76 S.Ct. 497, 507, 100 L.Ed. 511 (1956)). In accordance with the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination which prohibits prosecutorial authorities from using compelled testimony in any respect, we affirm the district court's dismissal of the grand jury indictment. See Kastigar, 406 U.S. at 453, 92 S.Ct. at 1661.