Opinion ID: 368287
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: dual employment status of government attorney

Text: 68 Both defendants in this case also urge dismissal of the indictment on the ground that an impermissible conflict of interest inhered in Mr. Taylor's dual employment status as a staff attorney for the SEC and a Special Attorney for the Justice Department, appointed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515(a) and § 534. 62 To support their argument, defendants rely primarily on a decision by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, In Re April 1977 Grand Jury Subpoenas (General Motors Corp.), 573 F.2d 936 (6th Cir. 1978), Appeal dismissed en banc, 584 F.2d 1366 (1978), Cert. denied, 440 U.S. 934, 99 S.Ct. 1277, 59 L.Ed.2d 492 (1979). We find their argument unpersuasive. 69 In General Motors, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attorney, who was familiar with a prior civil tax investigation of General Motors Corporation and who had recommended criminal prosecution of the company to the Justice Department, was appointed a Special United States Attorney to assist in the grand jury proceedings. A majority of the appeals court panel concluded that this dual employment status created an appearance of a conflict of interest, warranting disqualification of the attorney. Judge Merritt, dissenting, found neither improper conflict nor appearance thereof. After rehearing, the court En banc dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. While the En banc majority found it unnecessary to reach the merits, the concurring opinion of Judges Edwards and Lively expressed their agreement with Judge Merritt's earlier dissenting view that (t)here is no inherent conflict of interest in the dual Government employment status at issue. 584 F.2d at 1371. 70 In recent subsequent decisions by other courts, this latter view has prevailed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held, in In re Perlin, 589 F.2d 260 (7th Cir. 1978), that no impermissible conflict was inherent in a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) attorney's participation as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in grand jury proceedings; it thus affirmed a contempt judgment against a recalcitrant witness who claimed that the CFTC attorney's participation had tainted the proceedings. Similarly, in United States v. Dondich, 460 F.Supp. 849 (N.D.Cal.1978), the district court refused to dismiss an indictment on account of a specially authorized SEC lawyer's participation in the grand jury proceedings from which the indictment issued. 71 Both Perlin and Dondich involved attorneys from specialized Government agencies who, like Mr. Taylor in this case, had worked on their agency's civil investigations of transactions which were later objects of grand jury inquiry. In both cases, after the agency turned over evidence of possible criminal violations to the Department of Justice, the agency attorney was appointed a Special Assistant United States Attorney under 28 U.S.C. §§ 515(a) and 534, again like Mr. Taylor in this case. The specially deputized attorneys in Perlin and Dondich also maintained close contacts with their original agencies while working on grand jury matters, as did Mr. Taylor, who remained on the SEC payroll and continued to work for the SEC on matters relating to this case. 72 On facts substantially the same as those involved in this case, both Perlin and Dondich expressly rejected the position of the panel majority in General Motors. To summarize briefly, both decisions concluded that an attorney representing different agencies of the same Government is not engaged in the kind of conflict of interest which the drafters of the ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function and the ABA Code 63 intended to address: 73 (A)lthough the prosecutor should not be a professional associate of defense counsel, there is no conflict or appearance of conflict in his being professionally associated with other lawyers interested in the prosecution. The prosecutor of course is himself interested in the prosecution, but that is not the sort of interest that creates a conflict. 64 74 Further, both courts noted 65 that the position which defendants herein urge would frustrate the congressional policy of fostering intragovernmental cooperation in criminal prosecutions. This policy is implemented in 28 U.S.C. § 515(a) 66 and in the recent amendments to F.R.Crim.P. 6(e). 67 The Supreme Court has recently noted the importance of such intragovernmental cooperation in United States v. LaSalle National Bank, 437 U.S. 298, 312-13, 98 S.Ct. 2357, 57 L.Ed.2d 221 (1978). 75 In sum, the better view appears to be that there is no inherent conflict of interest or other impropriety in the appointment of an agency attorney to assist in criminal proceedings before a grand jury, and we follow the recent decisions adopting this view. Of course, abuse of an attorney's dual employment status might be shown in particular cases, especially where the agency uses the grand jury investigation to gather information for civil administrative proceedings to which it would not otherwise have access. Cf. LaSalle National Bank, supra. But no such specific allegations are made in this case, nor could they plausibly be on this record. Accordingly, we find no basis for dismissing the indictment on this ground. 76