Opinion ID: 540010
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alleged Grand Jury Irregularities.

Text: 157 On the day trial began, Coffie moved that the district court inspect the grand jury minutes, with a view to dismissal of the indictment against Coffie, because the superseding indictment had been redacted to remove (1) a reference to Coffie as a distributor of heroin, and (2) another reference to an intercepted telephone conversation between Flores and Coffie. Initially, the government erroneously concluded that Flores and Coffie had discussed pasteles, a code word used by the Torres Organization to refer to heroin, in the intercepted conversation, thus providing a basis to deem Coffie a heroin distributor; the government subsequently determined that the discussion concerned papeles, the Spanish word for papers. 158 Subsequently, after more than three weeks of trial, counsel for the Torres brothers objected that no grand jury minutes had been provided to defense counsel for cross-examination of the numerous prosecution witnesses that had by then testified, leading to the implication these witnesses had not testified before the grand jury and that the indictment was thus based, impermissibly in counsel's view, solely upon hearsay testimony. 159 Coffie reiterates these contentions on appeal, asserting that it was error to deny Coffie's timely motion to inspect the Grand Jury minutes and dismiss the indictment, and that in view of the prima facie showing that a violation of all defendants' due process rights occurred because the superseding indictment was based upon hearsay, it was incumbent upon the District Court to inspect the Grand Jury minutes to determine the extent to which any such violations occurred. 160 We disagree. Grand jury proceedings carry a  'presumption of regularity.'  Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 139 n. 23, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 2918 n. 23, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974) (quoting United States v. Hamling, 481 F.2d 307, 313 (9th Cir.1973), aff'd, 418 U.S. 87, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974)); see also United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 345, 94 S.Ct. 613, 618, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974); Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 363, 76 S.Ct. 406, 408, 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956); United States v. Ciambrone, 601 F.2d 616, 623 (2d Cir.1979) (quoting Costello, 350 U.S. at 363, 76 S.Ct. at 408). A review of grand jury minutes is rarely permitted without specific factual allegations of government misconduct. See United States v. Wilson, 565 F.Supp. 1416, 1436-37 (S.D.N.Y.1983). Furthermore, as a general matter, a district court may not dismiss an indictment for errors in grand jury proceedings unless such errors prejudiced the defendants. Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 254, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2373, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988). 161 Coffie contends, nonetheless, that redacting the indictment did not suffice, and that although there is no evidence of bad faith, the government was required to re-present the case to the grand jury prior to trial. Coffie relies principally upon United States v. Basurto, 497 F.2d 781 (9th Cir.1974), where the court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is violated when a defendant has to stand trial on an indictment which the government knows is based partially on perjured testimony, when the perjured testimony is material, and when jeopardy has not attached. Id. at 785. He asks that we apply the same reasoning here. 162 We decline to do so on this record. Given the absence of any claims of prosecutorial misconduct or perjury with respect to the grand jury proceedings, there is simply no basis to consider applying Basurto here. This is especially the case since we have concluded hereinabove that there was adequate evidence (obviously aside from the material redacted from the superseding indictment) to convict Coffie, and therefore certainly to indict him. Cf. United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 70, 106 S.Ct. 938, 941, 89 L.Ed.2d 50 (1986) (where no pretrial objection to indictment, guilty verdict by petit jury means any error in the ... charging decision was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt). 163 We also reject Coffie's claim that the constitutional rights of all defendants were violated because the superseding indictment was based exclusively on hearsay evidence. As we said in United States v. Dyman, 739 F.2d 762 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1193, 105 S.Ct. 969, 83 L.Ed.2d 973 (1985): 164 The use of hearsay testimony before a grand jury raises questions about the validity of an indictment only when the prosecutor misleads the grand jury into thinking it is getting first-hand testimony when it really is receiving hearsay, United States v. Estepa, 471 F.2d 1132, 1137 (2d Cir.1972), or where there is a high probability that if eyewitness rather than hearsay testimony had been used, the defendant would not have been indicted. United States v. Leibowitz, 420 F.2d 39, 42 (2d Cir.1969). Neither condition is met here. 165 Id. at 767. 166 We have not been presented even with a contention that either condition was met here, or with any showing of the prejudice required by Bank of Nova Scotia, 487 U.S. at 254, 108 S.Ct. at 2373. Accordingly, Coffie's attack upon the grand jury proceedings provides no basis to disturb any of the convictions on appeal.