Opinion ID: 346674
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Deletion of Grand Jury Testimony

Text: 17 As amended in 1970, the Jencks Act definition of a statement of a witness includes the record of the witness' testimony to a grand jury. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500(e)(3) (Supp.1976). Appellants moved on Jencks Act and Brady grounds for production of Leos' testimony to the grand jury which indicted them; following Jencks Act procedure, the court directed the government to supply appellants with the relevant portions of the grand jury transcript after Leos testified at trial. Portions of four of the thirty-nine pages of the transcript were deleted, however, when appellants received it. We find no error in the excisions. Initially, we disagree with appellants' contention that the trial court permitted the prosecuting attorney to make the deletions of supposedly irrelevant material rather than examining the transcript and making the deletions himself. The record indicates that the court took the transcript, read it, and directed that the applicable pages be copied and given to the appellants and that the copying of the transcript with excision of a few specific paragraphs was at the direction of the court. Further, we have examined the transcript of Leos' grand jury testimony in its entirety 13 and agree with the trial court that the few portions excised were not exculpatory within the Brady holding, nor did they relate to the subject matter of the testimony of Leos under § 3500(c). The court did not err in directing deletion of these portions. 18 Appellants' remaining complaints are without merit and are denied, and their convictions are AFFIRMED.