Opinion ID: 3050124
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: [1] If a district court dismisses an indictment (or portion thereof), the savings clause of 18 U.S.C. § 3288 permits the government to return a new indictment after the statute of limitations has expired, as long as it is done within six months of the dismissal. The statute reads as follows: Whenever an indictment or information charging a felony is dismissed for any reason after the period prescribed by the applicable statute of limitations has 1 Paragraph 175 was changed significantly. UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 12679 expired, a new indictment may be returned in the appropriate jurisdiction within six calendar months of the date of the dismissal of the indictment or information . . . , which new indictment shall not be barred by any statute of limitations. This section does not permit the filing of a new indictment or information where the reason for the dismissal was the failure to file the indictment or information within the period prescribed by the applicable statute of limitations, or some other reason that would bar a new prosecution. [2] The dispute in the instant case stems from the parties’ divergent interpretations of the final sentence of § 3288. This sentence explains that the savings clause does not extend to indictments initially filed outside of the statute of limitations. The government takes the position that this does not bar the return of the new indictment because the original indictment was obtained before the statute of limitations expired. Thus, the government argues, § 3288 permits amendment by a superseding indictment. Defendants disagree, arguing that the government failed to allege an overt act for the knowing endangerment object of the conspiracy before the statute of limitations expired. The district court agreed with defendants and dismissed the knowing endangerment object as timebarred. [3] Defendants’ argument is premised on a conflation of the terms “time-barred” and “not timely filed.” The last sentence of § 3288 refers to indictments that were not timely filed, i.e., indictments that were not filed within the statute of limitations. Here, there is no dispute that the government filed its indictment within the statute of limitations period. The district court dismissed the knowing endangerment object in the original indictment as “time-barred” because it failed to allege an overt act within the statute of limitations, not because the indictment was untimely filed. The district court erred. If the indictment is filed within six months of the dismissal order, 12680 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE § 3288 does not bar the government from filing a superseding indictment: the savings clause of § 3288 permits amendment when the original was structurally flawed but timely filed. United States v. Clawson, 104 F.3d 250 (9th Cir. 1996). In Clawson, the defendant was indicted for mail fraud on June 10, 1993. Id. at 251. Defendant immediately moved to dismiss the indictment for failure to allege an overt act within the five-year statute of limitations. Id. The indictment alleged overt acts that occurred before the limitation period began on June 10, 1988, or after defendant’s withdrawal from the conspiracy on July 5, 1988. Id. The district court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment and the government responded by obtaining a First Superseding Indictment, which alleged overt acts occurring in the window between June 10, 1988, and July 5, 1988. Id. Defendant then moved to dismiss the new indictment, arguing that the statute had run before the government obtained the First Superseding Indictment and that § 3288 did not extend to indictments dismissed for failure to comply with the statute of limitations. Id. The district court denied his motion and we affirmed. Id. at 251-52. Clawson noted that when “[r]ead in its entirety, th[e] last sentence [of § 3288] cuts off the six-month grace period only where the defect — whether it’s a limitations problem ‘or some other’ problem — is not capable of being cured.” Id. at 252. In the instant case, the district court held (and defendants now argue) that the defect in the original indictment obtained by the government is not capable of being cured because the original indictment did not allege an overt act for the knowing endangerment object before the statute of limitations expired. This position, however, is precluded by Clawson. In Clawson we distinguished between a timely filed, but flawed, indictment, to which the savings clause of § 3288 does apply, and an untimely filed indictment, to which it does not. UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 12681 “[I]f the original indictment was brought after the limitations period ran on all the alleged criminal conduct, allowing reindictment under section 3288 would obliterate the statute of limitations: A defendant could be indicted two years after the statute had run and, when the court dismissed, the prosecution could simply reindict within six months, free from the limitations bar.” Id. For obvious reasons, reindictment is prohibited by § 3288 in such circumstances. Id. “The matter is much different where the original indictment is brought within the limitations period, but is dismissed for failure to allege the exact elements of the crime, or some other technical reason. In the latter circumstance, a valid indictment could have been brought in a timely fashion; the six-month grace period merely allows the government to do what it had a right to do in the first place.” Id. The latter circumstance describes the facts of both Clawson and the instant case. In both cases, the government timely indicted defendants for a particular crime, but originally failed to allege a valid overt act. The government then obtained superseding indictments charging defendants with the exact same crimes, but adding the necessary overt act allegations. Thus, each defendant was charged “with the exact crime for which he could have been prosecuted had there not been a defect in the indictment. Section 3288 was designed to apply in this situation.” Id.; see also United States v. Charnay, 537 F.2d 341, 354 (9th Cir. 1976) (“[The] underlying concept of § 3288 is that if the defendant was indicted within time, then approximately the same facts may be used for the basis of any new indictment [obtained after the statute has run] . . . , if the earlier indictment runs into legal pitfalls.”). [4] When discussing “timeliness,” both Clawson and Charnay refer to the time of the original filing of the indict12682 UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE ment. They do not consider whether the original indictment included all of the relevant acts or elements necessary to charge defendants with the crime. As long as the original indictment is filed within the statute of limitations and charges the same crime, based upon approximately the same facts charged in the superseding indictment, § 3288 allows the government to file a superseding indictment within six months. See 18 U.S.C. § 3288; Clawson, 104 F.3d at 251-52; Charnay, 537 F.2d at 354. Here, the parties do not dispute that the original indictment was timely filed. The district court’s holding that the indictment was time-barred referred only to its failure to allege the necessary overt acts in the original indictment — a flaw that can be cured through reindictment under § 3288. The district court attempted to distinguish Clawson, stating that in Clawson the government alleged overt acts in the original indictment, which was filed within the limitations period. This distinction is irrelevant. While the government did allege overt acts before the limitations period expired in Clawson, it failed to allege an overt act sufficient to support the conspiracy charge since the only overt acts alleged occurred outside the statute of limitations or subsequent to Clawson’s withdrawal from the conspiracy. Thus, the government originally failed to allege any relevant overt acts in Clawson, just as in the instant case. Moreover, Clawson did not turn on the distinction advanced by the district court: as we have explained, § 3288 applies when an indictment (though defective) is brought within the limitations period, and the superseding indictment charges defendant with the same exact crime with which he was initially charged, based on approximately the same facts. The only addition in the new indictment considered in Clawson was the inclusion of new overt acts that the government could have used in the original indictment. The fact that the government had timely alleged inapplicable overt acts was wholly extraneous to the Clawson court’s decision. UNITED STATES v. W. R. GRACE 12683 The district court’s misapprehension of both Clawson and § 3288 is also clear from its statement that “[t]o allow the government a six-month grace period in this case would extend the statute of limitations for the improper purpose of affording the prosecution a second opportunity to do what it failed to do in the beginning.” Order Dismissing Indictment at 16. Yet this is exactly what § 3288 does. It extends the statute of limitations by six months to allow the prosecution a second opportunity to do what it failed to do in the beginning: namely, file an indictment free of legal defects. This reading of § 3288 does not, as the district court suggests, “require a defendant to remain subject to an indefinite threat of prosecution, held open beyond the statute of limitations period, while he and the court wait for the government to finish tinkering with the indictment.” Id. What § 3288 does is twofold: First, it eliminates the incentive for criminal defendants to move for dismissal of an indictment at the end of the statute of limitations, thereby winning dismissal at a time when the government cannot re-indict. And second, it subjects defendants to the threat of prosecution for six months after the dismissal of the original indictment — not an indefinite threat of prosecution as the district court suggests — and only if the government has timely filed an indictment charging the exact same crimes based on approximately the same facts. [5] For the reasons articulated herein, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of the knowing endangerment object of Count I in the superseding indictment and reinstate that portion of the count.