Opinion ID: 1384669
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: United States v. Mechanik

Text: One of the most irrational recent case results from the United States Supreme Court is inculcated in United States v. Mechanik, supra, 475 U.S. 66, 106 S.Ct. 938, 89 L.Ed.2d 50, which applied a confusing harmless-error implication to grand jury rule process violation in appending a cured-by-trial jury-verdict ratio decidendi. Predictably, the operative federal judiciary, through trial-court action and current court decision, has reacted in two ways. One line of authority is to grant an interim right of appeal to challenge grand jury process defalcation. United States v. Benjamin, 812 F.2d 548 (9th Cir.1987), citing Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corporation, 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). The question before us, then, is whether the effect of Mechanik will be to deprive appellants of any effective review of their claim after final judgment. Another way to put the question is to ask whether, after giving full precedential effect to Mechanik, we would be able to afford appellants any relief if their contentions proved to be meritorious. We conclude that the answer is `no.' First, it seems clear enough that the harmless error doctrine adopted by the majority in Mechanik rendered the claim of grand jury irregularities asserted by the defendant there effectively unreviewable. Indeed, the government concedes that a similar application of the harmless error rule to appellants' claims in this case would render them effectively unreviewable after final judgment.       There is another distinction between this case and Mechanik. The grand jury irregularity in this case was the subject of a motion made and ruled upon before trial. In Mechanik, the irregularity was discovered, and the motion made, after the trial had begun. The majority in Mechanik stated: `We express no opinion as to what remedy may be appropriate for a violation of Rule 6(d) that has affected the grand jury's charging decision and is brought to the attention of the trial court before the commencement of trial.' Id. 106 S.Ct. at 943 (footnote omitted). This disclaimer means that Mechanik does not automatically apply to our case, involving as it does the denial of a pretrial motion to dismiss.          Our conclusion that the district court's order in this case is appealable as a collateral order stems not only from its meeting the technical requirements for an interlocutory appeal, but also from the fact that if no appeal is allowed at this stage, appellants will wholly fail to benefit from the protections Rule 6(e) imposes on the constitutionally-mandated grand jury process. Errors that affected the grand jury proceedings to the detriment of the accused, and that would have justified the district court in dismissing the indictment before trial, would go wholly unremedied if the district court itself erred in denying dismissal. We cannot believe that Congress and the Supreme Court intended such ineffectiveness for the Rule. An interlocutory appeal will prevent that untoward result, and § 1291 is to be given a `practical rather than a technical construction.' United States v. Benjamin, supra, 812 F.2d at 551-554. The other line of authority confines the Supreme Court decision to what would customarily be harmless error, so that the case becomes meaningless in any newly created law standard, evaluation, or application. For a procedural-error application, see United States v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 187, 93 L.Ed.2d 121 (1986). Then see Porter v. Wainwright, 805 F.2d 930 (11th Cir.1986), reh. denied 810 F.2d 208 (11th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Porter v. Dugger, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 3195, 96 L.Ed.2d 682 (1987), egregious-conduct test, petit jury verdict rendering harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The First Circuit Court of Appeals has recently taken a position directly contrary to the Ninth Circuit in denial of the interim appeal in United States v. LaRouche Campaign, 829 F.2d 250 (1st Cir.1987). This court can hardly take comfort in anticipation of either approach, since a direct-contest proceeding was instituted before trial, and rules for waiver or cure by jury verdict cannot now properly be applied. This court cannot ignore its responsibility or its own abrogation of adjudicatory obligation at this time, since it denied the proceedings filed to challenge the justiciability and propriety of the grand jury sessions before any jury trial was convened. In United States v. Taylor, 798 F.2d 1337, 1339-1340 (10th Cir.1986), the court indicated that the one line of effectuation was distinctly presented.    Thus, the only question we must decide is whether an additional exception to the final judgment rule has arisen from Mechanik, like Athena from the head of Zeus.       Defendants argue the logical extension of Mechanik makes unreviewable any alleged irregularity which occurred during the charging process; but the contrary is true. Mechanik was carefully crafted along very narrow lines, and it has not resulted in another exception to the final judgment rule. We perceive that the Court has drawn a distinction between a defendant's right not to stand accused except upon a finding of probable cause and a broader right to fundamental fairness throughout the criminal process, from initial investigation to final judgment. In Mechanik, no allegations were made that the government attempted to unfairly sway the grand jury or to otherwise affect the fairness of the accusatory process. There was no alleged pervasive attempt to charge without cause or to undermine the defense. In short, there was no question whether the government had transgressed the defendants' rights to fundamental fairness. The error of which the prosecution was guilty, at worst, was technical, and, at most, could have affected only the grand jury's determination of probable cause. Since the error was not discovered until after the trial began, the trial was more than three months in duration, and the outcome effectively eliminated any question of whether there was probable cause, the Court found the error was harmless. The Supreme Court in Mechanik did not hold that a Rule 6 violation of any sort or any other act which affects the fundamental fairness of the criminal proceedings discovered prior to trial is not justiciable after conviction. That is a critical distinction. See also from the Tenth Circuit, United States v. Page, 808 F.2d 723, 726-727 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 3195, 96 L.Ed.2d 683 (1987): We may dismiss an indictment only if the prosecutorial misconduct is so flagrant that there was `some significant infringement on the grand jury's ability to exercise independent judgment.'       This clearly is not a case involving abuse, bad faith, or vindictiveness. See, however, United States v. Hintzman, 806 F.2d 840 (8th Cir.1986), differentiating errors connected with the charging decision; United States v. Murphy, 768 F.2d 1518 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied 106 S.Ct. 1188, 89 L.Ed.2d 304 (1986), considering sufficiency of the evidence as a review after trial as no basis for inquiry about grand jury conduct following adverse petit-jury verdict (use of hearsay issue); and as similar to United States v. Mechanik, supra, United States v. Roth, 777 F.2d 1200, 1204 (7th Cir.1985), considering perjured testimony: The first requirement, that the government know the evidence was perjured, is intended to preserve the principle that an indictment cannot be challenged on the basis of the insufficiency of the evidence on which the grand jury acted. The objection recognized in these cases is not to the insufficiency of the evidence but to the prosecutor's knowledge of its insufficiency, which makes the case one of prosecutorial misconduct. Whether consistency is preserved by this route is not certain.    What makes the government's knowing use of perjured testimony different is that it involves an element of deceit, which converts the issue from the adequacy of the indictment's evidentiary basis to fraudulent manipulation of the grand jury that subverts its independence. The second requirement in the cases, that the indictment would not have been issued except for the perjured testimony, confines judicial intervention to cases of prejudicial misconduct, that is, to cases where the misconduct made a difference to the defendant. See also United States v. Ciambrone, 601 F.2d 616 (2d Cir.1979), Friendly, J., dissenting. The Court of Appeals of New York specifically declined to follow Mechanik in People v. Wilkins, 68 N.Y.2d 269, 508 N.Y.S.2d 893, 501 N.E.2d 542 (1986), by statutory interpretation in separating defects in proceedings from insufficiency of evidence. See also People v. Dunbar, 53 N.Y.2d 868, 440 N.Y.S.2d 613, 423 N.E.2d 36 (1981). Rhode Island applies the error-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt test upon petit jury verdict, following Costello v. United States, supra, 350 U.S. 359, 76 S.Ct. 406, 100 L.Ed. 397, as an adequacy-of-evidence application. New Jersey applied Mechanik as to delay waiver in State v. Lee, 211 N.J. Super. 590, 512 A.2d 525 (1986), in an untimely challenge discussion, and then in State v. Murphy, 213 N.J. Super. 404, 517 A.2d 501 (1986), lack of prejudice in a real sense rendered harmless after jury verdict. (It is noted that a petition for certification was granted by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in State v. Murphy, 107 N.J. 120, 526 A.2d 188 (1987)). The principle of distinguishing Mechanik is most expressly found in current statement where habeas corpus was granted in Saldana v. State, 665 F. Supp. 271 (S.D.N.Y. 1987). Although Wyoming does not have a rule comparable to Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(ii), F.R.Cr.P., the text of present § 7-5-208(b), W.S. 1977, 1987 Replacement, clearly demonstrates that a motion to dismiss an indictment is authenticated statutorily:    [A] juror, attorney, interpreter, stenographer, operator of a recording device or any typist who transcribes recorded testimony may disclose matters occurring before the grand jury only when so directed by the court preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding or when permitted by the court at the request of the defendant upon a showing that a particularized need exists for a motion to dismiss the indictment because of matters occurring before the grand jury. I see an invitation in adoption of United States v. Mechanik, supra, for this court to cultivate a responsive approach as cogently advised in Weinberg, After Mechanik: What's Left of Grand Jury Safeguards?, 1 A.B.A. Criminal Justice 2, 39-40 (Winter 1987): (1) Defense counsel should press vigorously, in appropriate cases, for the pre-trial release of grand jury minutes under Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(ii). That provision authorizes disclosure where the minutes are shown to be necessary because `grounds may exist for a motion to dismiss the indictment because of matters occurring before the grand jury.' Since Mechanik may make midtrial disclosure under the Jencks Act too late for a defendant to obtain relief for any abuses the minutes reveal, district courts should be sensitive to the resulting need for more liberal application of Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(ii) than in the past. (2) When the government argues that a motion to dismiss should be denied because defendant has not shown that a Rule 6 or constitutional violation is prejudicial  within the meaning of the Mechanik majority or O'Connor concurrence, both of which reject the per se rule  defendant should press for full disclosure of the pertinent grand jury record under Rule 6(e)(3). This is the only way that the defense can fairly litigate the question of whether an error was `harmless.' Although this is obvious in the context of the appellate review of trial errors, where the defense and the court have the entire trial record available to assess the context and effect of the error in the petit jury's decision-making, the same rationale must apply to assessing a government claim that a violation was harmless in its effect on the grand jury's deliberations.       (4) When a pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment for grand jury violations is denied, defense counsel should consider noting an appeal, and securing a stay of trial pending its resolution, if any resulting delay would not hurt the defendant's interest. Unless and until a Supreme Court majority holds such pretrial denials are not appealable orders, Justice Marshall's opinion in Mechanik may provide authority for such appeals. In addressing a point not considered in the majority or concurring opinions, Marshall noted that the logical consequence of the majority's holding grand jury errors unreviewable after conviction, was that preconviction orders denying dismissal may be deemed `collateral orders' immediately appealable   . The characterization of Mechanik by the author, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams and Connolly, is expressive: Justice Rehnquist's recent opinion for a five-member majority, reversing the dismissal of a grand jury's conspiracy charge in United States v. Mechanik [supra], entails a remarkable departure from both precedent and protection of the accused's rights in grand jury proceedings. Invoking the harmless error rule in a novel fashion, the Mechanik majority held that grand jury errors may not be remedied on appeal because the petit jury's verdict of guilt established that `any error in the grand jury proceeding connected with the charging decision was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.' Id. at 942. Thus, the presence of an unauthorized person in the grand jury room  a hitherto well-recognized ground for dismissing an indictment pretrial  was treated by the Mechanik majority as harmless error when raised on appeal. The policy justification for this unusual legal rule rested upon a combination of `Chicago School' economics and Persian poetry. The `societal costs of reversal and retrial' were held to outweigh the benefits of vindicating a convicted defendant's grand jury rights. And Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat supplied Rehnquist with the philosophical rationale he required: `In courtroom proceedings as elsewhere, the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.' Id. at 942-43. Id. at 2.    The ABA House of Delegates unanimously called for such legislation at the August 1986 ABA Annual Meeting, adopting a resolution proposed by the Criminal Justice Section's White Collar Crime Committee in March and approved by the Section Council in April. Rarely does the ABA react so quickly to a Supreme Court decision; its speed reflects the profession's concern with Mechanik's potentially sweeping effects. Indeed, the ABA Journal's Supreme Court column had warned, `Without congressional action to create the mechanism for enforcing Rule 6, criminal practice may no longer be concerned in any meaningful way with grand jury abuses.' 72 ABAJ 88, 90 (May 1986).          It is urgent that the 100th Congress adopt a `Grand Jury Procedural Protection Act of 1987' to ensure that the Mechanik case may not long continue to make historic grand jury safeguards `a dead letter.' Id. at 40-41. I find no differentiation in system compliance and justice delivery between Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986), and United States v. Mechanik, supra, except by artificialities of result orientation. This is result-determined justice adjudication in its clearest terms as a reassertion that the end justifies the means. A more rational recognization and reconsideration of prosecutorial misconduct is found in conviction reversal in United States v. Valentine, 820 F.2d 565 (2d Cir.1987) in prosecutorial misrepresentation of grand jury testimony. Additionally, it would seem that this court further misreads Mechanik since the no-consideration rule denominated in the concurrence of Chief Justice Burger found no other support as the court's opinion. The seriousness with which this aberration from fairness and due-process case law is considered, is illustrated by subsequent evaluation in the number of concerned law journal articles and symposium comments. I am also lost in supposition as to what the court proposes in suggestion of a test of defect by habeas corpus. [22] In the first place, the defendant is not always in jail. Not only is this ephemeral in application by denied records, but I suggest it more realistically invites interim appeal, certiorari, or prohibition, or all three, to procedurally raise and dispositively document grand jury process error on a far broader attack than is the jurisdictional inquiry of habeas corpus. Assuming that Headrest might be the prosecution witness, do we resolve here that individual trial-testimony sufficiency cannot be tested? Gary Trudeau, Doonesbury. A logical extension is to eliminate criteria for any evidence, with process then to be identifiable with the Marine drill sergeant and his platoon as the grand jury is acclimated to obeyed directive. See somewhat similarly directed comments of Justice Douglas in special concurrence in Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 15, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970), where he observed that in Russia the courtroom trial concerned only the issue of punishment. Constitutional protection of individual rights in the face of discernible United States Supreme Court trends is now a primary responsibility of state courts. The 1980s could prove to be a decade of significant state court leadership in the field of individual rights protection. In the era since Warren Burger replaced Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, state courts of last resort have rendered some 300 published opinions declaring that the constitutional minimums set by certain U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the U.S. Bill of Rights and the fourteenth amendment are insufficient to satisfy the more demanding precepts of state law. This trend continued in 1985. Collins and Galie, Models of Post-Incorporation Judicial Review: 1985 Survey of State Constitutional Individual Rights Decisions, 55 Cin.L.Rev. 317 (1986). Thoughtful application of the opportunity suggested by Gallivan, Supreme Court Jurisdiction and the Wyoming Constitution: Justice v. Judicial Restraint, XX Land & Water L.Rev. 159, supra, is not inapposite in progressive persuasion. For current review in other states considering either or both prosecutorial or investigatory attributes, see Note, The Reportorial Power of the Alaska Grand Jury, III Alaska L.Rev. 295 (1986), and Gingerich, The Arkansas Grand Jury: 19th Century Answers to 20th Century Problems, 40 Ark. L.Rev. 55 (1986). This court should follow the Wyoming Constitution and long-existent precedent clearly recognized by New York in People v. Wilkins, supra, 68 N.Y. 2d 269, 508 N.Y.S.2d 893, 501 N.E.2d 542. The need to exercise that responsibility was never so immediately obvious as now clearly portrayed in the current Tenth Circuit case of United States v. Kilpatrick, supra, 821 F.2d 1456.