Opinion ID: 968
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prosecutorial misconduct in grand jury proceedings

Text: Fenner and Davis assert that the Government made a deliberate misstatement of fact to the grand jury. At the end of the Government's presentation of evidence, a grand juror asked: On all of these instances, were these substances tested and found to truly be fentanyl, heroin or crack cocaine? The case agent who was testifying then discussed field tests of the substance obtained during the second controlled buy and efforts to identify it as fentanyl. The prosecutor followed up by asking: But to answer your question, these things have all been tested now and it is what we say it is? The case agent responded: Yes, everything's been tested. The exchange concluded with the grand juror asking additional questions concerning the potency of fentanyl. The Government has acknowledged that only field testing had been conducted on the drugs at the time of the grand jury proceedings on July 13, 2006. It is undisputed that the cocaine seized throughout the investigation field-tested positive for cocaine and resembled crack, including the hard, rocky substance seized from Fenner upon his June 23 arrest. However, lab results, reported in August after the grand jury proceeding, proved that substance seized from Fenner at the time of his arrest was powder and not crack cocaine. It is also undisputed that lab results confirmed the remaining cocaine seized was crack cocaine, which would include the more than sixty grams seized during the first controlled buy on May 11, as well as the 120 grams seized from Hargrove following the aborted fourth controlled buy on June 23, and the 28.5 grams from Hargrove's bedroom. Defense counsel received notice of the lab results and later obtained transcripts of the grand jury proceedings. On the day of trial, Fenner and Davis moved to dismiss the indictments as to the crack-related charges (Counts 1, 2, 5, and 7 of the original indictment), asserting the Government deceived the grand jury into thinking all the substances had been truly tested when they had not been. The Government countered, and maintains on appeal, that the case agent made an innocent misidentification of the single drug exhibit and that, because the defendants were in custody on a complaint, the Government had only thirty days to indict and could not wait on the lab results. The district court denied the motions to dismiss, and it granted a Government motion to amend Count 7 of Fenner's indictment to read possession with intent to distribute powder cocaine on June 23, 2006, instead of crack cocaine. At trial, a DEA agent explained to the petit jury that officers initially thought the substance seized from Fenner at his arrest was crack cocaine, based on its appearance, but that the results later showed it to be powder. Following conviction on all charges, the defendants renewed their objections in motions for a new trial, which the district court denied. [G]rand jury proceedings are afforded a strong presumption of regularity, and a defendant seeking to overcome that presumption faces a heavy burden. United States v. Hintzman, 806 F.2d 840, 843 (8th Cir.1986). Dismissal is an extreme remedy, United States v. Two Eagle, 318 F.3d 785, 793 (8th Cir.2003), and is inappropriate absent a showing of actual prejudice. United States v. Wilson, 565 F.3d 1059, 1070 (8th Cir.2009). We hesitate here to label the well-explained and potentially innocent misstatement as misconduct. However, even if we were to assume prosecutorial misconduct occurred, it is well-established that a petit jury's guilty verdict normally renders errors in the grand jury proceedings harmless. See, e.g., Wilson, 565 F.3d at 1064, 1069-70; United States v. Pumpkin Seed, 572 F.3d 552, 556-57 (8th Cir.2009) (in sex abuse prosecution, error was harmless even if special agent's testimony deceived grand jury into believing that defendant was source of semen and pubic hair found on victim's rape kit, when lab results, only available after the indictment, later proved him not to be); United States v. Sanders, 341 F.3d 809, 818-19 (8th Cir.2003) (absent race discrimination in choosing grand jury, guilty verdict meant defendant was guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt). As discussed below, the subsequent trial was not so infected by prejudicial error to persuade us to depart from this general rule.