Court Opinion

ID: 9465934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:00:25.806297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:27.277154
License: Public Domain

GARTH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from Order denying Petition for Rehearing:
I vote to grant the government’s petition for rehearing in banc. In my view, the panel opinion, which will now become the law of this circuit, has reached an illogical result — a result which bears no relationship to the evil which the panel has properly condemned. In this case government agents sought to interfere with the relationship between a criminal defendant and her counsel. However, despite an acknowledged absence of prejudice to the defendant, the panel in finding a sixth amendment violation has ordered that the defendant’s indictment be dismissed — a sanction without precedent in this or other circuits.
Inasmuch as under this circuit’s operating procedures, only a court in banc may override a panel’s published opinion (Internal Operating Procedure p. 25), I have voted for the court in banc to reconsider the panel’s decision in this case — a decision which I believe to be seriously flawed, in both analysis and result.
I
Hazel Morrison, the defendant-appellant, was indicted on June 28,1978 on two counts of illegally distributing heroin in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). On May 31, 1978, Salvatore Cucinotta, Morrison’s attorney, met with an Assistant United States Attorney and with Dennis Malloy, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency (D.E.A.), for purposes of engaging in pretrial negotiations. Therefore, at least from May 31, 1978 on, the government knew that Morrison was represented by counsel. On August 23, 1978, D.E.A. agents Stephen Hop-son and James Bradley visited Morrison’s home without the knowledge or permission of her counsel.1 According to the panel opinion, at 530,
Hopson questioned Mrs. Morrison about the source of her heroin during the period prior to her arrest; suggested that she was facing a stiff jail term;3 observed 8 Mrs. Morrison testified that the agents warned her that the trial judge in her case was the “worst SOB in the federal courts”, that he “hates black people”, and that her “goddamn ass [was] going to jail”. The agents testified that they did not recall the specifics of this conversation.
that he could make recommendations to the U.S. Attorney as to whether she should receive a lenient or heavy sentence; and told her about the government’s protection plan for informers. Hopson also questioned Mrs. Morrison about how much money she was to pay Mr. Cucinotta. He then stated that he had seen her counsel’s work, and suggested to Mrs. Morrison that she retain a public defender instead. He also urged her to obtain the services of a public defender if she wished to cooperate with the D.E.A. Finally, he suggested that she should think about the quality of the representation that she would receive for the amount of money ($200) that she was *535paying attorney Cucinotta. Upon departing, he gave defendant his telephone number.
Undaunted by this encounter, Morrison immediately called her attorney, who came to her home. In Cucinotta’s presence, Morrison called the telephone number given her by Hopson. Apparently in at attempt to verify the misconduct of the D.E.A. agents, she made plans to meet Hopson between noon and 1:00 p.m. of the next day. Hop-son did not arrive at the scheduled time, however, but came instead at 6:00 p.m. He departed upon being informed by Morrison that she had company and could not speak, and that in any event she wanted her attorney present. The next day, August 25, 1978, Morrison received another visit from Hopson. According to Hopson’s testimony he repeated the statements he had made during his first visit.
Prior to trial, Morrison filed a Motion to Dismiss the Indictment with Prejudice, alleging denial of her sixth and fourteenth amendment right to effective assistance of counsel and her fourteenth amendment right to a fair trial. This motion was denied without opinion by the district court. Immediately thereafter, appearing with her same attorney Salvatore Cucinotta, Morrison entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of distribution. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment, followed by a special parole term of three years. On appeal, a panel of this court reversed the judgment of sentence and remanded to the district court with an order to dismiss the indictment with prejudice because the government had interfered with Morrison’s sixth amendment right to counsel!
II
There can be no excuse made for the improper conduct of the D.E.A. agents in this case. Nonetheless, I most strenuously disagree with the analysis and the result of the panel opinion. The logic of the panel opinion will simply not bear scrutiny. Apparently because the panel cannot think of an appropriate sanction to correlate with the nonprejudicial, albeit inexcusable, conduct of the government in this case, it has decided to impose the extreme sanction of dismissing the indictment. The infirmity in the reasoning of the panel opinion is compounded by the result. Dismissal of the indictment despite the absence of any prejudice to the defendant from the misconduct of the government is completely unjustified.
A
The Supreme Court, in Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 97 S.Ct. 837, 51 L.Ed.2d 30 (1977), held that not all invasions of the attorney-client relationship by government agents would give rise to a sixth amendment violation. In that case, Bursey, the criminal defendant, sued Weatherford, a government informant, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging, inter alia, that Weatherford had violated Bursey’s sixth amendment rights by attending two meetings with Bursey and his attorney. Rejecting the argument that such an intrusion was a per se violation of the sixth amendment, the court reasoned that “[tjhere being no tainted evidence in this case, no communication of defense strategy to the prosecution, and no purposeful intrusion by Weatherford, there was no violation of the Sixth Amendment . ..” 429 U.S. at 558, 97 S.Ct. at 845.2
*536The test formulated in Weatherford v. Bursey, supra, was applied by this court in United States v. Levy, 577 F.2d 200 (3d Cir. 1977). Levy involved a direct appeal from a judgment of sentence in which the defendant, Levy, attacked his conviction on the ground that a government informant, posing as a co-defendant, had violated the privileged relationship between Levy and his attorney and had disclosed confidential defense strategy to government personnel. As this court held, prejudice to the defendant would be presumed in such a case:
Where there is a knowing invasion of the attorney-client relationship and where confidential information is disclosed to the government, we think that there are overwhelming considerations militating against a standard which tests the sixth amendment violation by weighing how prejudicial to the defense the disclosure is.
We think that the inquiry into prejudice must stop at the point where attorney-client confidences are actually disclosed to the government enforcement agencies responsible for investigating and prosecuting the case.
577 F.2d at 208-09.
This holding is fully consistent with Weatherford v. Bursey, supra, which indicates that the sixth amendment will be violated whenever there is “communication of defense strategy to the prosecution . . . .” 429 U.S. at 558, 97 S.Ct. at 845.
Concluding that a sixth amendment violation occurred, the Levy court determined that dismissal of the indictment was the only appropriate remedy because the information revealed by the government informant had become part of the public domain. 577 F.2d at 210. No contrived safeguards could assure that the information would not be made use of by the government if a new trial were ordered. Id.
Although it is a close question, I will assume that the conduct of the D.E.A. agents was sufficiently “purposeful” in this case to give rise to a sixth amendment violation under the standards established in Weatherford v. Bursey, supra. But concluding that a constitutional violation occurred should in no way lead to the panel’s holding that the indictment must be dismissed. As the Levy opinion indicates, dismissal of the indictment is appropriate when the harm to the defendant cannot effectively be cured by less drastic means. This case, by contrast, does not present a situation where prejudice to the defendant cannot be remedied in alternate ways. Indeed, this case presents a situation where there has been no showing whatsoever that the defendant has been prejudiced by the government’s misconduct. There is no claim that confidential attorney-client communications were revealed to the government as a result of the conduct of the D.E.A. agents. Nor is there any claim that Morrison’s confidence in her attorney was undermined by governmental conduct, or that her guilty plea was induced by it.
Inexplicably, the panel opinion turns the rationale of Levy on its head; it reasons that because the defendant was not prejudiced, dismissal of the indictment is the only available remedy.3 This analysis is fundamentally flawed. As the Government’s Petition for Rehearing In Banc acutely points out, “ . . . the panel’s analysis reduces to the following non sequitur: Since the [D.E.A.] agents’ conduct was reprehensible, the defendant must be granted some relief; and since there was no disclosure to suppress or trial to re-try, dismissal is proper.” In addition, the panel opinion works a significant harm to the public interest because it immunizes criminal defendants from *537prosecution even though government misconduct has caused them no harm.4
Indeed, as a result of the panel’s decision, a defendant finding himself in this situation may be better off by alleging no prejudice than by claiming he was harmed by the government’s misconduct. In the latter case, he may be granted a new trial or if he has pled guilty, his plea may be vacated. But if he succeeds in proving the absence of prejudice, the indictment, under the panel’s opinion, will be dismissed.
B
Even if the reasoning of the panel opinion were sound, which I do not believe it is, the result requiring dismissal of the indictment is utterly inappropriate in this case. I agree with the analysis of Judge Feinberg in United States v. Broward, 594 F.2d 345 (2d Cir. 1979), cert. denied,-U.S.-, 99 S.Ct. 2882, 61 L.Ed.2d 310 (1979), as to when dismissal of an indictment is an appropriate remedy. In that case, the district court had determined that government officials inserted false materials into an arrest warrant and had lied in court. Consequently, the district court dismissed the indictment. The court of appeals reversed, ruling that “dismissal of the indictment was an inappropriate response.” 594 F.2d at 351. Judge Feinberg reasoned as follows:
In United States v. Fields, 592 F.2d 638 (2d Cir. 1978), [cert. denied, - U.S. -, 99 S.Ct. 2838, 61 L.Ed.2d 284 (1979),] Judge Timbers pointed out for this court that we have upheld the dismissal of an indictment only in very limited and extreme circumstances. In such cases, there was a need either to eliminate prejudice to a defendant in a criminal prosecution, where it was impossible to do so by imposition of lesser sanctions, or to deter a pattern of demonstrated and longstanding widespread or continuous official misconduct.
While these may not be the only conceivable circumstances in which we would uphold a dismissal, ... we emphasize here, as was emphasized in Fields, that the sanction is so drastic that, especially where serious criminal conduct is involved, it must be reserved for the truly extreme cases.
594 F.2d at 351. See United States v. Owen, 580 F.2d 365 (9th Cir. 1978).
Under the standards set forth in Broward, dismissal of the indictment is an obviously improper remedy in this case. There has been no claim made, nor could there be, that Morrison was prejudiced by the government’s misconduct, or that this type of misconduct is widespread, routine, constant or continuous. Neither remedial nor deterrence rationales support the extraordinary sanction imposed by the panel. As a consequence, the public is punished for the misconduct of a government agent even though that misconduct did no harm to the defendant.
Ill
This is a case in which, conceding the alleged misconduct of the government, the defendant did not sever her relationship with her attorney; the government learned nothing from its interview with her; and her attorney, whom she still retained, did no more than assist her in entering her plea of guilty. Thus, there exists simply no relationship between the sanction imposed and the injury which it redresses.
The government’s petition for rehearing which followed the filing of the panel opinion reinforces my view that this case deserves in banc consideration. I therefore *538vote to grant the petition and I dissent from the court’s order which denies it.
Judge ROSENN joins in this dissent.
Judge ADAMS also votes for rehearing in banc, because he believes that in view of the position of the Second Circuit in Broward the issue in this case is sufficiently important to warrant the attention of the full Court. This would seem particularly so, he observes, since the Broward case was not brought to the attention of the panel before its opinion was filed.

. Prior to this visit, Hopson had spoken with Malloy concerning Morrison. Hopson was investigating a heroin dealer, and wished to gain Morrison’s cooperation in that investigation. Malloy discussed Morrison’s case with Hopson, and Hopson had certain discussions with an Assistant United States Attorney in which Morrison’s name was mentioned.

. In Via v. Cliff, 470 F.2d 271 (3d Cir. 1972), this court held that a prisoner could maintain an action for damages under § 1983 against prison officials for interference with the prisoner’s right to counsel while he was confined in county prison awaiting trial. The court stated that if the prisoner “can prove that the interference was either wrongfully motivated or without adequate justification and involved the defendants), he will have established an infringement of his constitutional right to counsel by the defendant(s).” 470 F.2d at 275. Although the court stated that the prisoner “can maintain this cause of action without alleging or proving prejudice to his defense at trial by the alleged actual infringements,” id., it was apparent from the facts that the prison officials had engaged in the sort of purposeful conduct that the Supreme Court suggested in Weatherford v. Bursey, supra, would constitute a sixth amendment violation. The court in Via v. Cliff expressed no view as to the damages the pris*536oner might recover. Id. at 275 n.3. Thus, even if Morrison has established a sixth amendment violation within the standards set forth in Via v. Cliff, that opinion cannot be relied upon to support the dismissal of the indictment in this case.

. The panel’s reliance on Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942), is misplaced. In Glasser, the court ordered a new trial because of a violation of the defendant’s sixth amendment rights. The indictment was not dismissed.

. It is not necessarily the case that the government misconduct must go entirely unremedied in this case. The D.E.A. agents may be subject to departmental disciplinary measures. Moreover, they may be subject to suit in a civil action by Morrison under the rationale of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 559 (1971). Of course, such a civil remedy would not preclude suppression in a criminal trial of any information gleaned by the government’s violation of a defendant’s sixth amendment rights. It is for these reasons as well that I disagree with the rationale of the panel opinion.