Opinion ID: 456183
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Powers I

Text: 5 Shortly after the entry of Powers's guilty plea, the district court dismissed his complaint in the present action on the ground that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Although we agreed with the court's conclusions as to most of the claims asserted, we reversed insofar as the complaint alleged that defendants had deprived him of a fair trial by systematically leaking to the press information relating to their investigation. We ruled that Powers was entitled to have an opportunity to prove that claim, and we remanded for further proceedings. 6 In making our ruling, we outlined certain factors that Powers would have to prove in order to prevail on the surviving claim. In addition to showing that there were leaks that were unnecessary in scope, nature, and number, we stated that Powers would have to show that he had  'in fact been denied [his] due process rights.' Martin v. Merola, 532 F.2d [191,] 194 [ (2d Cir.1976) (per curiam) ] (emphasis added). 728 F.2d at 105. Finally, we pointed out that 7 the showing that must be made involves more than a showing that there were improper leaks and that there was deprivation of a fair trial. While there need not be a showing that the defendant(s) herein knew that the leaks would tend to cause such a deprivation or intentionally gave them to the media, ... there must be a showing that other remedies were not available, or were used to no avail, to alleviate the effects of the leaks, e.g., a thorough voir dire, utilization of challenges both peremptory and for cause, a motion to disqualify a biased judge (we do not suggest that there was such in this case), a motion to change venue, or the like. In other words, there must be a showing of causation; if Powers was deprived of a fair trial he has to show that such deprivation was not too remote a consequence of the improper leaks to the press. 8 Id. at 105 (citations omitted). We ended our discussion of this claim by stating that anything we have said, of course does not foreclose, on appropriate papers, summary judgment. Id. at 106.