Opinion ID: 421796
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 2 We take the following factual allegations to be true. 2 In April 1976, the Justice Department commenced an investigation into the FBI's use of illegal break-ins against family members and friends of Weatherman suspects. During the course of and as part of this inquiry, prosecutors presented evidence to several Grand Juries. The investigation culminated in April 1978 when a Grand Jury sitting in Washington, D.C., indicted Gray and two other high-ranking FBI officials, W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, for having conspired to deprive certain relatives and acquaintances of Weatherman fugitives of their rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241 (1976). 3 3 The Government's case against Gray rested principally on his alleged issuance of generic authorization of surreptitious entries into the residences of friends and relatives of Weatherman fugitives. According to the indictment, Gray's authorization was issued in September of 1972, during two conferences of FBI Special Agents in Charge (SAC). In their Grand Jury presentations, representatives of the Justice Department claimed that their investigation revealed that 67 persons attended those two SAC conferences, that 9 persons could provide testimony to support their 'generic authorization' theory, and that the remaining 58 persons had no recall one way or the other of relevant assertions by [Gray]. Amended Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial, reprinted in J.A. 9-10. 4 An independent post-indictment investigation by Gray's attorneys brought out serious gaps in the generic authorization theory and revealed the Justice Department's investigation to have been incomplete in several important respects. Government investigators failed to take account of a significant number of persons in attendance at the SAC meetings who stated that they did not recall Gray authorizing any surreptitious entries and that they would not have likely forgotten such an instruction. Furthermore, two of the nine witnesses whose testimony purportedly supported the generic authorization theory specifically said Gray had not given such a directive at the September 1972 meetings. Government investigators also had or could have obtained FBI Agents' detailed notes of what transpired at the SAC conferences and these [229 U.S.App.D.C. 180] notes failed to show that Gray had authorized the use of surreptitious entries. 5 Gray claims that, as a direct result of these investigative deficiencies, the prosecution's presentation to the indicting Grand Jury gave a wholly inaccurate and distorted picture of what went on at the SAC conferences. Prosecutors failed to call witnesses who, had they been adequately interviewed or interviewed at all, would have testified favorably to Gray. There was no attempt to apprise the Grand Jury of the existence of contemporaneous notes omitting mention of the alleged blanket authorization. The testimony of the notetakers was not presented to the Grand Jury. And one witness who gave incriminating testimony later said that he would not have so testified had his memory been refreshed by the notes. 6 Gray also contends that the prosecutors affirmatively misled and presented what proved to be false evidence to the indicting Grand Jury. For example, Gray asserts that the prosecutors represented that: (1) the break-ins had begun after Gray was appointed Acting Director, when in fact break-ins had begun two years before Gray's appointment; and (2) in October 1972 Gray had approved a training lecture on the use of illegal break-ins as an investigative technique, when in fact the agent who allegedly gave the lecture was suspended from duty at the time the training course was supposed to have taken place. 7 Gray forcefully urges that all of these cited investigative and prosecutorial omissions, deficiencies and misrepresentations resulted from either gross negligence or willful and wanton disregard for his rights.