Opinion ID: 768669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fifth Amendment: The Grand Jury Issue

Text: 90 The grand jury clause of the Fifth Amendment is similarly irrelevant to this appeal. That clause prohibits prosecution for charges not presented to the grand jury. See Walsh, 194 F.3d at 44. All that is required to satisfy the clause is that the indictment contain some amount of factual particularity to ensure that the prosecution will not fill in elements of its case with facts other than those considered by the grand jury. Id. (citations omitted). 91 Judge Gibson notes that it was only after the indictment was returned, that the government specified that Boyle, as the holder of a 45% ownership interest, was a 45% beneficial shareholder of DPC. The suggestion is that the government's post-indictment refusal to adhere slavishly to the 45% ownership interest language already appearing in the indictment somehow constitutes an impermissible modification of the essential elements of the § 7206(1) charge presented to the grand jury. I cannot agree. 92 In my view, this is hardly a case where [a]t every stage . . . the defendant [is] met with a different theory. Russell, 369 U.S. at 768. To the contrary, it strikes me that the government's theory here has remained absolutely constant. Simply put, the Boyle Allegations charge that Pirro violated § 7206(1) by lying on his tax returns about Boyle's ownership of 45% of DPC. To the extent that the government's change in nomenclature from 45% ownership interest to 45% beneficial shareholder has any significance, it simply adds detail, and indeed narrows rather than broadens the original charges. United States v. Zvi, 168 F.3d 49, 54 (2d Cir. 1999). As such, it was entirely permissible. See e.g., United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 145 (1985); see also United States v. Castro, 776 F.2d 1118, 1123 (3d Cir. 1985) (no violation of Fifth Amendment where variation did not broaden the bases for conviction, but instead narrowed the scope of the evidence to prove an offense included in the indictment.). 93 Although this Circuit long ago abandoned technical rigidity in reviewing indictments, United States v. Wydermyer, 51 F.3d 319, 324 (2d Cir. 1995), Judge Gibson also seeks to support his Fifth Amendment theory by engrafting an additional layer of complexity onto our indictment jurisprudence. He concludes that the indictment was defective because it fails to explicitly specify the legal duty which made Pirro's lies about Boyle a crime under § 7206(1). See ante at 92-93. Such specificity was required, Judge Gibson maintains, because of the principle that where an indictment charges a crime that depends in turn on violation of another statute, the indictment must identify the underlying offense. Id. 94 This has never been the law in this Circuit. To the contrary, we have consistently upheld indictments that 'do little more than to track the language of the statute charged and state the time and place (in approximate terms) of the alleged crime.' Walsh, 194 F.3d at 44 (quoting United States v. Tramunti, 513 F.2d 1087, 1113 (2d Cir. 1975)); see United States v. Alfonso, 143 F.3d 772, 776 (2d Cir. 1998); United States v. Stavroulakis, 952 F.2d 686, 693 (2d Cir. 1992). 95 These requirements were more than satisfied by Pirro's indictment. Indeed, this is not a case like United States v. Berlin, 472 F.2d 1002, 1006 (2d Cir. 1973) in which the government actually omitted a requisite element of the charged offense from the indictment presented to the grand jury. No such omission occurred here. To the contrary, the indictment alleges each essential element of a § 7206(1) violation - charging that Pirro willfully and knowingly filed a false tax return that he did not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter. See United States v. Peters, 153 F.3d 445, 461 (7th Cir. 1998) (listing elements of a § 7206(1) violation). More than that, the indictment specifies that Pirro violated § 7206(1) by concealing Boyle's 45% ownership interest in DPC. Under our case law, this was all that was necessary. See Walsh, 194 F.3d at 44; Alfonso, 143 F.3d at 776; Stavroulakis, 952 F.2d at 693. 96 In sum, both my colleagues may legitimately question whether Pirro's failure to mention in DPC's tax return Boyle's real ownership of DPC constitutes a crime. This is a fair question that turns on whether Pirro had a known legal duty to disclose Boyle's beneficial shareholding in DPC. The question of whether there is a known legal duty, however, is one of law for the court, not the grand jury, to resolve. See United States v. Ingredient Technology Corp., 698 F.2d 88, 97 (2d Cir. 1983). Whatever the answer to that question, there can be no doubt that the § 7206(1) charge itself was fairly presented to the grand jury. 97