Opinion ID: 397156
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: production of grand jury minutes

Text: 292 Appellant Grant filed a motion for disclosure of the minutes of the grand jury that returned the original and superseding indictments in this case after he learned that a government attorney had presented to that grand jury evidence that had been earlier presented to a former grand jury. The government attorney disclosed that information to the successor grand jury without having obtained a court order, in violation of Fed.R.Crim.P. 6(e). The government attorney notified the Chief Judge of the Southern District of Florida after the disclosure had already been made, but the Chief Judge made no ruling on the propriety of such after-the-fact disclosure. Grant's motion was based on the violation of Rule 6(e) and United States v. Malatesta, 583 F.2d 748 (5th Cir. 1978), rehearing en banc, 590 F.2d 1379 (5th Cir.) (adopting panel opinion in relevant part), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 846, 100 S.Ct. 91, 62 L.Ed.2d 59 (1979). He claimed that disclosure to him was necessary in order to enable him to determine whether any abuses had occurred in the manner that the material that had been presented to the first grand jury had been presented to the second grand jury that returned the indictments. 293 The district court denied Grant's motion to disclose the grand jury minutes after making an in camera inspection of the evidence presented to the second grand jury. The trial court's order denying Grant's motion stated that the information presented to the second grand jury in this case reveals that the information presented was a summary of the indictment already returned by the first grand jury. The first grand jury, however, did not return an indictment; the successor grand jury returned two indictments-original and superseding. It is not clear from the district court's order whether its examination of the evidence presented to the second grand jury was limited to review of the evidence presented with respect to the issuance of the superseding indictment. 294 In his motion for disclosure, Grant stated that the Government had informed him that the transcripts of the testimony and evidence that had been presented to the first, non-indicting grand jury had been reviewed for the second, indicting grand jury. 295 This Court in United States v. Malatesta, supra, 583 F.2d 748, confronted a Rule 6(e) problem similar to the instant one. In that case a grand jury returned an indictment based in part upon testimony that had been given to a prior grand jury. The defendants sought dismissal of the indictment because the prosecutor disclosed the prior grand jury material to the successor grand jury without first obtaining a court order in violation of Fed.R.Crim.P. 6(e), which 296 prohibits disclosure of matters occurring before the grand jury except when it is directed by the court, is made to the attorneys for the government for use in the performance of their duties, or is made to government personnel deemed necessary to assist an attorney for the government in performance of his duty to enforce federal criminal law. 297 Id. at 752. The Malatesta Court recognized that 298 (t)he real problem in later disclosure to another grand jury may lie in possible prosecutorial abuse, such as the use of selected portions of the testimony, or the presentation of a transcript when the witness in person would be unimpressive. So long as the defendant is prevented from discharging the grand jury's minutes, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, (360 U.S. 395, 79 S.Ct. 1230, 3 L.Ed.2d 1323 (1959)), and United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., (356 U.S. 677, 78 S.Ct. 983, 2 L.Ed.2d 1077 (1958)), the prosecutor's actions remain virtually unchecked. Even court scrutiny after the fact may not always be effective. 299 Id. at 753. 300 The Malatesta Court held that, although a court order should have been obtained before transcripts, excerpts or summaries of testimony that were presented to a prior grand jury are disclosed to a successor grand jury, the prosecutor's failure to obtain a prior court order does not require dismissal of the indictment in the absence of any showing of abuse. Id. Violation of Rule 6 by disclosing grand jury testimony to another grand jury does not per se invalidate an indictment. Id. at 754. 301 In the present case the government attorney violated Rule 6(e) by disclosing the grand jury material of a prior grand jury to the successor, indicting grand jury without obtaining a prior court order. However, this Court will dismiss the indictment only upon a showing that there was such an abuse of the grand jury process that any substantial rights of the defendant were impaired or the integrity of the grand jury proceedings was impugned. Id. 302 We have reviewed in camera the material that was read to the indicting grand jury by the government's attorneys. The material is a summary of the government's evidence that was to be presented to the indicting grand jury. While the summary as read reflected, at least in part, a review of some of the evidence that had been presented to a prior non-indicting grand jury, the summary was not presented for the purpose of establishing probable cause for any count in the indictment returned. It is obvious that the summary was read for the purpose of giving the members of the indicting grand jury an overview of the Black Tuna group's extensive operations so as to enable the members of the indicting grand jury to more readily follow the evidence as it unfolded through the testimony of the many witnesses that appeared and testified before the indicting grand jury. While such a procedure may have constituted a technical violation of Rule 6(e), since it occurred prior to obtaining a court order, dismissal of the indictment was not required since there was no abuse of the grand jury process and no substantial rights of the defendants were infringed. United States v. Malatesta, supra, 583 F.2d at 754. 303 We have also reviewed the testimony presented by the numerous witnesses who appeared before the indicting grand jury. Our examination of the testimony reveals that independent of the improperly disclosed material there was sufficient evidence before the indicting grand jury from which it could find probable cause for each of the counts returned against each of the appellants.