Court Opinion

ID: 9455517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:25:00.093082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:37.674266
License: Public Domain

*1243ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
In our original opinion we stated, with respect to the production of Grand Jury testimony and a statement by an informer as follows:
“We conclude that the trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion to produce certain grand jury testimony of three persons who testified before the Grand Jury, but who were not called to testify before the jury on the trial itself, or in denying appellant’s motion to produce a statement by an unnamed informer who testified before the grand jury, but who did not testify at the trial.”
This statement was intended to indicate that these persons were “not called by the government” to testify before the jury on the trial itself, because it is only with respect to witnesses actually called to testify by the prosecution that the rule of the Jencks Act applies. We did not mean to state that the three persons who testified before the grand jury were not put on the witness stand on behalf of the defendant.
The record discloses that the witnesses before the grand jury were an Internal Revenue Special Agent and three employees of the defendant. The United States did not call any of them as witnesses on the trial itself. Upon motion by the appellant the court ruled:
“The grand jury testimony, or any statement of any witness used, will be furnished' to counsel for defendant on the day before any witness in the case is placed on the witness stand, * * *
“Is this agreeable to counsel for both sides ?
“MR. MAHON: Thq government is agreeable to this, Your Honor.
“MR. SIGEL: It is agreeable with the defendant, Your Honor.”
When at the conclusion of the government’s case, it appeared that none of the three employees of the defendant who had appeared before the Grand Jury had been called by the United States, the defendant made the following motion:
“MR. SIGEL: There is one thing I would like to have on the record, and that is that the Government has now indicated that he will close his case with one last technical witness. As a result, it appears that none of the witnesses who appeared in the grand jury were called by the Government and that means that there is the likelihood that the Government has changed its theory, that there is evidence possibly in the grand jury minutes that might possibly be to our advantage, and we again request the Court to allow us to see it. After all, not one of these witnesses has been called.
The Court overruled this motion.
Thereafter, the defendant called all three witnesses who were his employees and the government undertook to cross-examine one of them, Smith, by confronting him with his Grand Jury testimony. Appellant complains that the refusal of the trial court to make the entire grand jury minutes available prejudiced his cause in meeting this effort by the government to show any inconsistencies between the witness’ testimony and his prior testimony before the grand jury.
We find no error in the only ruling made by the trial court with reference to this matter.
The appellant also complains of the failure of the trial court to require a disclosure by the government of the identity of the informer, who appellant says in his brief here, was “presumably” an employee of the defendant.1
The government did not use as a witness any employee of the appellant who had testified before the grand jury. *1244The question of the correctness of the trial court’s refusal to require the disclosure of the identity of the informer is therefore tested by the rule stated in Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d 639, which holds that protecting the identity of informers is an important policy which will yield only to a particularized showing of need in an individual case. We think that the trial court did not err in its decision to protect the identity of the informer in this case.
We strike the paragraph of the opinión first quoted above and modify the opinion by substituting what is said here.
In all other respects this Motion for Rehearing is overruled.

. Appellant’s brief here states: “Statements contained in Agent Palmer’s referral report make it quite obvious that information in the informant’s report which Palmer referred to and relied upon came from an employee of defendant who presumably was the informant.”