Opinion ID: 329571
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Appeals from the Central District of California.

Text: 19
20 To the extent that the proceedings below are regarded as civil in nature, we have jurisdiction to hear the government attorneys' appeal in No. 74-1182 under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 or § 1292(a)(1). Meier concedes as much. He argues that if the proceedings are to be treated as part of a criminal prosecution, as the government attorneys urge, the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3731 (Supp.1975), does not provide appellate jurisdiction. That section provides in pertinent part as follows: 21 An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of appeals from a decision or order of a district courts (sic) suppressing or excluding evidence or requiring the return of seized property in a criminal proceeding, not made after the defendant has been put in jeopardy and before the verdict or finding on an indictment or information, if the United States attorney certifies to the district court that the appeal is not taken for purpose of delay and that the evidence is a substantial proof of a fact material in the proceeding. 22 The appeal in all such cases shall be taken within thirty days after the decision, judgment or order has been rendered and shall be diligently prosecuted. 23 Meier argues that this section does not apply because the appeal is not by the United States, but by two individual government attorneys. Alternatively, he contends that the government attorneys' failure to file the required certificate within thirty days of the district court's decree is a fatal defect in the perfection of the appeal. Each of these arguments is without merit. We decline to permit Meier to foreclose the government's right to appeal simply by the manner in which he styles his pleadings. Meier's complaint was, in substance, against the government, as it would be under Rules 41(e) and (f). 24 Other circuits have held that delayed filing of a § 3731 certificate does not destroy appellate jurisdiction. See, e.g., United States v. Wolk, 8 Cir., 1972, 466 F.2d 1143, 1146 n. 2; United States v. Kleve, 8 Cir., 1972,465 F.2d 187, 189-90; United States v. Welsch, 10 Cir., 1971, 446 F.2d 220, 224. While such delay is not to be regarded with favor, we agree that it does not rise to jurisdictional dimensions. 25 We conclude that we have jurisdiction in No. 74-1182. We need not, for reasons that will appear, decide whether we also have jurisdiction in No. 74-1673. 26
27 The jurisdictional character of the proceeding below is somewhat muddled. Meier has acknowledged that his complaint is in the nature of a preindictment motion to suppress and for return of property. Pointing to the August, 1973, indictment, the government attorneys urge that the proceeding was in fact a pretrial motion under Rules 41(e) and 41(f), F.R.Crim.P., 1 tied to the pending criminal prosecution in Nevada, and that therefore the district court for the Central District of California lacked subject matter jurisdiction. While this argument is in some respects appealing, we note several defects in it. First, only criminal defendants and the government are ordinarily parties to a Rule 41 motion. Suckling is neither. Second, while the 1972 amendments to Rule 41 provide that motions to suppress may be brought only in the district of trial, motions for the return of property may still be brought in the district of seizure. 2 28 Meier argues that the district court's power over the case springs from a different jurisdictional fount, the so-called anomalous jurisdiction, see Lord v. Kelley, D.Mass., 1963, 223 F.Supp. 684, 688-89, appeal dismissed 1 Cir., 1964, 334 F.2d 742. This has been variously explained as an inherent supervisory or disciplinary power over officers of the court, see, e. g., Centracchio v. Garrity, 1 Cir., 1952, 198 F.2d 382, 385-86; United States v. Maresca, S.D.N.Y., 1920, 266 F. 713, 717, or as the power of a court (to) reach forward to control the improper preparation of evidence which is to be used in a case coming before it, and . .. by summary procedure (to) restrain oppressive or unlawful conduct of its own officers, Foley v. United States, 5 Cir., 1933, 64 F.2d 1, 3; In re Fried, 2 cir., 1947, 161 F.2d 453, 458; Smith v. Katzenbach, 1965, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 113, 351 F.2d 810, 815-16. While this power is not stated in any jurisdictional statute, it has long been recognized as a basis for independent, preindictment suits in equity seeking the suppression and return of illegally obtained evidence. See Hunsucker v. Phinney, 5 Cir., 1974, 497 F.2d 29, 31-35, and cases there collected. 29 Thus there is a theoretical basis for the district court's assumption of jurisdiction, but the anomalous jurisdiction is equitable in nature, and it does not automatically follow that this unique power should be exercised whenever it exists. Hunsucker v. Phinney, supra, 497 F.2d at 34. Rather, it is to be exercised, if at all, with caution and restraint and in accordance with familiar limitations on the granting of equitable relief. Id. at 34; Smith v. Katzenbach, supra; Centracchio v. Garrity, supra; Donlon v. United States, D.Del., 1971, 331 F.Supp. 979; Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee v. Hoover, S.D.N.Y., 1971, 327 F.Supp. 238, 242; Lord v. Kelley, supra; Rodgers v. United States, supra; 3 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure, Criminal, § 673 (1969). Rule 41 is but a crystallization of (this) principle of equity, Hunsucker v. Phinney, supra, 497 F.2d at 34; Smith v. Katzenbach, supra, 351 F.2d at 814, and thus subject to the same equitable limitations. 30 As will be shown, we think that regardless of the jurisdictional premise of the proceeding in the trial court, equitable considerations required that court to dismiss Meier's action. Thus, we do not reach the theoretical question of the district court's subject matter jurisdiction, and do not consider to what extent, if any, Rule 41 operates as a restriction on the forum in which the principle of anomalous jurisdiction is applicable. 31
32  The facts of this case, as the government brief aptly puts it,  clearly demonstrate the improper use of a civil action filed in one district to hamper an ongoing criminal tax evasion proceeding in another district. At the time Meier's complaint was filed, he had already been indicted in the District of Nevada, he knew that he was about to be indicted again in that district, and he had no sound reason to suspect that superseding indictments, or any indictments, would be returned elsewhere. At the temporary restraining order hearing, both Meier and the district judge were advised that Suckling had already, with the blessing of the Nevada district court, given the testimony sought to be suppressed. During the proceedings at least three government attorneys, including the Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, went on record denying that there was a plan to prosecute in a California district court. 33 Under the circumstances, Meier's remedy was in the District of Nevada, and he failed to show that he would be irreparably injured if the equitable relief prayed for were not granted by the district court in California. See Hunsucker v. Phinney, supra, 497 F.2d at 34; Rodgers v. United States, supra, 158 F.Supp. at 679-83. The bulk of the evidence sought to be suppressed had already gone to the grand jury, which was entitled to consider it even if it had been illegally obtained. United States v. Calandra, 1974, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561. To the extent that Meier's purpose was the suppression of the material at trial, or obtaining its return, he could have obtained a prompt adjudication of his claims by filing a Rule 41 motion in the criminal prosecution already pending in Nevada or, granting arguendo the doubtful proposition that the superseding indictments were unrelated to the indictment already returned by filing a preindictment motion in Nevada. The Nevada district court was already familiar with the case, had jurisdiction over both prosecutions, and had already ruled, albeit ex parte, on the claims Meier was pressing. Unlike the California district court, it had ready access to a transcript of the allegedly privileged testimony. 34 Instead, Meier chose to file his action in another district. His reasons for doing so are all too evident: at best, he hoped for a forum more sympathetic to his position, at worst, he hoped to delay the Nevada prosecutions and to gain broader discovery than that normally available in a criminal proceeding. None of these objectives was worthy of the equitable sanction of the California district court. 35 Smith v. Katzenbach, supra, was another case in which a prospective criminal defendant attempted to shop for a forum by filing, under the guise of a civil action, in a district other than those specified in Rule 41, what was essentially a pre-trial motion. In upholding the district court's dismissal of the action for want of equity, the court observed as follows: 36 To gain the perspective needful for this case we stretch our canvas beyond the traditional rubric of adequacy of remedy at law. A court properly exercises its discretionary powers by withholding relief that may involve interjection into criminal proceedings in another forum, particularly where it adheres to a policy indicated by Congress, as here in (former) Rule 41(e) (now Rules 41(e) and 41(f)), of the course of ultimate determination of questions involved in such proceedings. See Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 162-163, 63 S.Ct. 877, 87 L.Ed. 1324 (1943). 37 Id., 351 F.2d at 816. 38 The soundness of this principle is apparent in the present case. But for Meier's flight, the conflicting adjudications and the appeals which resulted from his successful attempt to invoke the jurisdiction of an inappropriate forum might have delayed the commencement of two criminal trials, in contravention of the strong policy favoring speedy justice. 39 In addition, the permanent injunction issued by the California district court prohibited, by its terms, 40 any investigation . . . in the Central District of California, or any other District except the District of Nevada, in which there will be used, directly or indirectly, any unlawful testimony or evidence containing privileged confidential communications between plaintiff and Suckling obtained from Suckling or any leads derived therefrom. 41 unless cleared by the district court after 30 days written notice to it and to Meier. This kind of order had a high potential for interfering with entirely proper investigation incident to the two prosecutions already pending in the District of Nevada. Suckling lives and practices law in the Central District of California and Meier lived and had business dealings there and in other districts covered by the court's order during the years for which his tax liability was being looked into. Certainly it is an unprecedented anomaly for a court in one district to attempt to control a criminal prosecution in another district by requiring the government to give thirty days notice to the prospective defendant of its every investigatory move and then to obtain the court's approval before proceeding. 42 In our view, the California district court, in the proper exercise of its equitable discretion, should have squelched Meier's attempt to circumvent the Nevada district court's jurisdiction by declining to exercise its own jurisdiction, if any, and dismissing the action. 43 In view of our holding that the district court should have declined jurisdiction, we need not reach Meier's cross-appeal. Dismissal of the action will render Meier's appeal moot. 44