Opinion ID: 433047
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government's Second Use Theory

Text: 23 The government points out that Busk was prosecuted not only for violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1955, but also, in separate prior proceedings, for violation of the excise and occupational taxes on wagering. 26 U.S.C. Sec. 7201 (1976). Use of the retrieved and seized records, assuming the application of section 4424(a)(2) to them, was clearly permissible, under section 4424(b), in those prior proceedings. It is the government's theory that once evidence, otherwise within the nondisclosure ambit of sections 6103 and 4424, is made part of a trial record in any civil or criminal proceeding under the Internal Revenue Code, it is public for all purposes, including criminal prosecutions for non-revenue offenses. Thus, the government urges, it was permissible for the Justice Department to use that information in the section 1955 prosecution. 24 To evaluate the validity of the government's second use theory, one must consider the congressional intention in enacting section 4424, and the relationship between that statute and the privilege against self incrimination. In Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 60-61, 88 S.Ct. 697, 708-709, 19 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) and Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62, 70, 88 S.Ct. 709, 714, 19 L.Ed.2d 906 (1968) the Supreme Court held that the privilege against self incrimination was a valid defense to a prosecution for noncompliance with the filing and registration requirements of Chapter 35 of the Internal Revenue Code. That was so, because, as then enacted, Chapter 35 mandated that the filings and registrations be maintained as public records. See 26 U.S.C. Sec. 4412 (1964); 26 U.S.C. Sec. 6107 (1964). The purpose of maintaining the required filings as public records was to make them available to prosecuting authorities interested in the enforcement of state and federal laws against wagering. The statutes compelling such public self incrimination were held to violate the fifth amendment. 25 In reaction to Marchetti and Grosso, Congress amended Chapter 35 so as to prohibit disclosure or use against a taxpayer of wagering tax return information, except in connection with the administration or enforcement of the Internal Revenue laws. Pub.L. No. 93-499, Sec. 3(c)(1), 88 Stat. 1550 (1974). This restriction, Congress believed, would place the records and filings within the required records doctrine of Shapiro v. United States, 335 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 1375, 92 L.Ed. 1787 (1948), and outside the prohibition against compulsory self incrimination. 26 Once the fifth amendment purpose animating section 4424(a) is recognized, it is difficult, if not impossible, to read into that statute a second use exception. The most obvious example which comes to mind is a civil proceeding relating to the accuracy of a wagering tax return, which was duly filed and found to be entirely accurate. If such a civil proceeding resulted in making the return a public record, accessible to both state and federal prosecutors, the end result would be compulsory self incrimination just as surely as was the case prior to the enactment of section 4424(a). If the statute were to be read in such a manner it would be as vulnerable to fifth amendment challenge as were the predecessor statutes invalidated in Marchetti and Grosso. Thus we do not rely on the circumstance, whether it was coincidental or deliberate, that the government chose to utilize the wagering records in an Internal Revenue Code case which antedated Busk's prosecution under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1955.