Opinion ID: 2329763
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jencks Act

Text: Appellants assert the trial court erred in ruling that the paragraph in question from Wright's witness statement did not constitute Jencks material of McCain. As a consequence, they argue, the court improperly restricted the scope of McCain's cross-examination. For the Jencks Act to apply and for the right of discovery to exist under the Act, the records at issue must be `statements' within the meaning of the Act. Moore v. United States, 353 A.2d 16, 18 (D.C.1976). In relevant part, the Act defines statement as either a written statement made by [a] witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him, or a recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by [a] witness and recorded contemporaneously with the making of [the] oral statement. 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e)(1) and (2) (1982). As to the second definition, the transcription must be a continuous, narrative recording rather than mere selective notations or excerpts from the oral statements. Moore, 353 A.2d at 18. As the Supreme Court has emphasized, It is clear that Congress was concerned that only those statements which could properly be called the witness' own words should be made available to the defense for purposes of impeachment, and that, to guard against distortion, summaries of an oral statement which evidence substantial selection of material, or which were prepared after the interview without the aid of complete notes, and hence rest on the memory of the agent, are not to be produced. Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 352-53, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1224-25, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959) (emphasis added). Our standard of review on appeal is whether the trial judge made a reasonable determination that the notes were not a statement under the Jencks Act. United States v. North American Reporting, Inc., 238 U.S.App.D.C. 300, 304 n. 6, 740 F.2d 50, 54 n. 6 (1984). The paragraph in question fails to meet the criteria for Jencks Act statements of McCain. No evidence suggests that McCain adopted the information. Also, Officer Wright recorded the statement from memory two days after the event, not contemporaneously with its alleged making. Moreover, it is not a continuous, narrative recording; it is more in the nature of selective notations and excerpts from oral statements. In sum, the paragraph is a summary of oral statements prepared after an interview without the aid of notes  a summary of the sort held nonproducible in Palermo. The paragraph, therefore, cannot be characterized as McCain's own words for use as impeachment.