Court Opinion

ID: 9475257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:21:46.950262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:36.392422
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority in its treatment of all the issues raised in this case, except for the Jencks Act issue. I dissent since the majority misinterprets the Jencks Act and case law interpreting the scope of the Act and, as a result, imposes an unnecessary burden on the district courts in this circuit to conduct unwarranted evidentiary hearings.
I
The record reveals that FBI Agent Fox testified on direct examination that he had several conversations with Stoneking, a convicted felon, while Stoneking was confined in prison. The agent did not testify as to. the details of those conversations; rather he merely related the fact that Stoneking gave him information concerning organized crime activities in Southern Illinois and the St. Louis, Missouri area. This testimony was elicited by the government as background information concerning how the FBI came into contact with Stoneking. On cross-examination defense counsel asked Agent Fox about the conversations in prison:
“Q. Now it’s customary, is it not, in your agency in the Federal Bureau of *1007Investigation to make reports of your activities, isn’t it?
A. Yes it is.
Q. And did you make out any reports concerning the negotiations that you had with Mr. Stoneking leading up to his release from the penitentiary?
A. No I didn’t.
Q. Did any other agent do that?
A. No.
Q. That is unusual, isn’t it, not to make reports?
A. Not concerning talking to cooperative witness. I made a report of whatever he told me concerning any criminal information that he gave me.
Q. You mean before or after his release?
A. Some were before.
Q. So you did make some reports then of the discussions that you had with him before he was released from the penitentiary?
A. Yes I did.
Q. And those are the same conversations that you testified to earlier that you had with him while he was in the penitentiary?
A. Yes.”
The defense counsel then moved for production of all of the FBI reports documenting the conversation that the agents had with Stoneking, but the district court denied this request after the government assured the court that it had turned over all of the FBI reports and information contained therein concerning the defendant Allen to defense counsel. After Agent Fox was excused from the stand, Stoneking testified as to his role in the undercover operation. He stated that while imprisoned in early 1982 he contacted the FBI to request help in arranging his transfer from the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana to the federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri in order that he might be closer to his family. He informed the FBI that he could possibly provide information on organized crime activities in the St. Louis area. After his transfer to the Springfield facility, he gave the FBI information concerning several bombings in the St. Louis area. He further testified that after his release from prison in September 1982 he began to work as an informant for the FBI during the next two and one-half years. He subsequently met Allen in June, 1983, through Stam, a mutual acquaintance of both Allen and Stoneking. The remainder of Stoneking’s testimony concerned the topics of those subsequent conversations between himself and Allen and the introduction of the tape recordings made of several of those conversations.1 On cross-examination the following colloquy took place between defense counsel and Stoneking:
Q. Okay. Then after you got out, you had some [sic] numerous conversations with the F.B.I., is that right?
A. Yes I did.
Q. And you gave them information as to what you knew about the activities in this area, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And during that time, were they making notes when you would talk with them?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And these are the conversations that you mentioned this morning when you testified about the various interviews that you had with F.B.I. agents, correct?
A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Barris: Your Honor at this time I would request that the notes and reports concerning these interviews be furnished pursuant pursuant to Sec. 3500.
The Court: Yes and I ask the government to give the attorney for the defendant all of the Jencks Act material that is available, if you haven’t already done so.
*1008Mr. Proud: Every scrap of paper that concerns [Allen] has been given to Mr. Barris, Your Honor.
******
Mr. Proud: I understand it very well, Your Honor. He has everything that pertains to [Allen]. The government sees this perhaps as some kind of discovery device for other cases.
The Court: And you know at this juncture, Mr. Barris, I think I would have to accept the government’s representation to the Court in this regard.
The Jencks Act “requires the government to produce, upon the motion of the defendant after the witnesses testified on direct examination any statements of the witness it may have relating to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified.” United States v. Balistrieri, 779 F.2d 1191, 1217 (7th Cir.1985); 18 U.S.C. § 3500. A statement is defined, in part, under the Jencks Act as “(1) a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him.” 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e)(1) (emphasis added). If the defendant moves for the production of a witness’s statement at trial pursuant to the Jencks Act and the government contends that the requested document does not contain a “statement” then the court may order the statement to be produced for an in camera inspection. See Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 108, 96 S.Ct. 1338, 1347, 47 L.Ed.2d 603 (1976). If the statement sought to be produced qualifies as a “statement” under the Jencks Act but the government claims that it “does not relate to” the subject matter of the testimony of the witness then the court must order the statement to be produced for in camera inspection to determine the relevance of the statement. 18 U.S.C. § 3500(c).
Based upon their expansive interpretation of the Jencks Act, the majority remands this case to the trial court for an in camera inspection of the FBI reports filed by Agent Fox, apparently to determine if those reports are relevant to the testimony given by Stoneking in this case. I use the word “apparently” as I am at a loss to understand the parameters of the majority holding. At one point the majority apparently holds that this case should be remanded for an in camera inspection to determine if the FBI reports of organized crime in the St. Louis area not concerning Allen are “statements” within the meaning of the Jencks Act. See majority opinion at 995. Later in their opinion, the majority states that the remand for an in camera inspection is to determine the relevancy of the documents: “We need not find those reports were clearly statements, but only that because of precedent the district court had a responsibility to examine them. In addition because it is not denied that they exist and because as FBI reports they may be ‘statements,’ the only remaining question is one of relevancy.” Majority opinion at 998 (emphasis added). See also majority opinion at 1000. The problem with the majority’s approach is that they make mention of the precedent but fail to properly apply it as they assume a sufficient foundation was established at trial to compel production of the FBI reports for an in camera inspection. Because it remands this case for an in camera inspection of the FBI reports even though the defendant failed to establish the required minimal foundation to justify application of the Jencks Act discovery rales — that the FBI reports qualified as “statements” and that the reports related to “the subject matter of the testimony,” as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3500(b) — I am confident that the majority’s unwarranted expansion of the Jencks Act discovery rales will unnecessarily increase the workload of the already overburdened district courts and cause undue disruptions in the administration of justice in future criminal trials. Accordingly, I dissent,
II
In United States v. Robinson, 585 F.2d 274 (7th Cir.1978) (en banc), the government informant testified at trial that the defendant had killed a man on a highway in Indiana. The trial testimony revealed that *1009the informant and the FBI were in daily contact with each other prior to the killing and that the FBI agent took extensive notes at these meetings. The defendant moved for production of the FBI notes contending that these documents fell within the Jencks Act discovery rules and that it was error for the district court to deny his request without first making an in camera inspection of the documents. In upholding the district court’s decision refusing to grant the defendant’s motion for an in camera inspection, we noted that the Jencks Act was an attempt on the part of Congress “to balance Government’s interest in limiting and regulating defense access to Government files against a defendant’s ‘entitle[ment] to relevant and competent reports and statements in possession of the Government touching the events and activities as to which a Government witness has testified at trial____’” Id. at 280 (quoting S.Rep. No. 981, 85th Cong. 1st Sess. 3, reprinted in [1957] U.S. Code Cong. & Adm. News, p. 1862). In order to achieve these twin goals, we stated that a defendant must initially:
“meet the burden of specifying with reasonable particularity (normally by his cross-examination at trial) that a certain document exists, and that there is reason to believe that the document is a statutory ‘statement,’ and that the Government failed to provide it in violation of the Act. Goldberg v. United States, 425 U.S. 94, 116, 96 S.Ct. 1338 [1350], 47 L.Ed.2d 603 (1976) (Powell, J. concurring). Upon such a showing, a court must then conduct an in camera inspection to determine whether the document is both relevant and a competent ‘statement’ under the Act.”
Id. at 280-81. In Robinson the court properly held that the defendant failed to establish the requisite foundation at trial to justify an in camera inspection of the FBI reports as the defendant had failed to provide any evidence as to the existence of any documented conversations between the FBI agent and the informant other than those that had previously been turned over to the defendant. It is particularly noteworthy that in Robinson we cited Justice Powell’s concurrence in Goldberg discussing the necessary foundation testimony that must be set forth at trial before a district court will be required to hold an in camera hearing to review a government document.
In Goldberg, supra, the defendant was indicted and convicted of mail fraud. A cohort of the defendant pled guilty prior to trial and agreed to testify for the government. In preparing for trial, the government prosecutors extensively interviewed this person and made notes of those conversations. At trial, the defendant moved for production of those notes under the Jencks Act after the witness testified on cross-examination that those notes were “occasionally read back” to him to insure the correctness of the information. Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 100, 96 S.Ct. at 1343. The Supreme Court reversed the district court’s determination that the notes were the protected work product of the government prosecutor and remanded the case to the district court for an in camera inspection as to whether the notes were “statements” of the witness within the meaning of the Jencks Act, noting that the witness’s “testimony raised a sufficient question under the Act to require the trial judge to conduct such an inquiry____” Id. at 109, 96 S.Ct. at 1347. Justice Powell concurred in the result since the district court erroneously denied the motion based upon the work product privilege. His concurrence, cited with approval by our court in Robinson, emphasized the need to establish the proper foundation at trial through questioning of the witness to justify interrupting an ongoing trial to examine government documents in camera:
“[T]he fact that the interview notes frequently will not be producible means that collateral proceedings into their producibility should not be required unless there is good reason to believe they may be ‘statements.’ In this light, it is evident that Newman’s cursory and ambiguous testimony was wholly insufficient to require the judge to interrupt the trial and conduct a collateral inquiry, for it *1010showed nothing more than discussions of the general substance of what the witness [had] said.
* * * * * *
A showing as generalized as this should never be sufficient to require the trial judge to conduct collateral proceedings on the producibility of prosecutor’s notes. If it is, collateral inquiry always will be required, for competent prosecutors rarely will go to trial that such ‘discussions of the general substance’ with key witnesses and the related taking of notes to be used in the examination of such witnesses____ The ‘needless trial of collateral and confusing issues’ that the Court’s approach encourages is not necessary for ‘assuring that utmost fairness to the criminal defendant’in the administration of the Jencks Act.”
Id. at 119-20, 122, 96 S.Ct. at 1352-53, 1353 (emphasis added). In emphasizing the need for a proper foundation prior to a request for application of the Jencks Act discovery rules, Justice Powell noted that the initial burden must be placed on the defendant to demonstrate the need for the in camera inspection:
“The proper administration of the Act requires that the defendant meet an initial burden of showing that collateral inquiry is necessary to protect his rights under the Act____ This requirement also is appropriate because the trial should not be interrupted for collateral proceedings absent a genuine need for them____
The burden on the moving defendant is not to prove the existence of a statutory ‘statement.’ The purpose of the collateral proceedings is to resolve that issue. Rather, the burden is simply to establish by probative evidence — usually in cross-examination of the witness alleged to have given a statement — that there is reason to believe that a statutory ‘statement’ may exist. Certainly more must be shown than a speculative possibility. If, as here, the defendant’s theory is that a prosecutor’s notes meet the requirements of subsection (e)(1), the questions must be asked the witness that focus on whether there was in fact an ‘adoption or approval’ of a specific statement, rather than general concurrences in the correctness of the prosecutor’s understanding of what the witness knows. Absent explicit answers to such questions that satisfy the defendant’s burden, the trial judge should deny the motion for production without the collateral proceeding.”
Id. at 123-24, 96 S.Ct. at 1354 (emphasis added).
Our court in Robinson and Justice Powell’s concurrence in Goldberg emphasized the need for the defendant to establish the possibility that the requested information is a statement within the meaning of the Jencks Act so as to justify interrupting a trial to conduct a discovery mini-trial in the judge’s chambers. Our concern as expressed in Robinson over interrupting a criminal trial to conduct a separate mini-discovery trial is consistent with the purpose of Jencks Act to regulate the defendant’s access to government files to provide only that information to the defendant that could be useful as impeachment evidence at trial. See Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 349, 354, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1223, 1225, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959). The Jencks Act is not concerned with the production of exculpatory evidence rather it is to be used as an adjunct to Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), which protects the defendant’s right to exculpatory information. See also United States v. Navarro, 737 F.2d 625, 631 (7th Cir.1984) (requiring the government to produce all exculpatory evidence prior to trial). Therefore, it is incumbent that the defendant provide a sufficient evidentiary foundation at trial through a thorough cross-examination of the witness to demonstrate that there is a sufficient basis for halting the trial to compel the trial judge to review the requested documents in camera to determine if they contain impeachable material. This burden is consistent with our court’s admonishment that a trial of *1011collateral issues not bearing directly on the guilt or innocence of the defendant are to be avoided. See United States v. Rovetuso, 768 F.2d 809, 817 (7th Cir.1985) (noting that our circuit does not allow impeachment by contradiction through the use of extrinsic evidence as to collateral matters elicited on cross-examination).
Ill
The majority holds that the defense counsel established a sufficient evidentiary foundation to justify an in camera hearing based on the fact that the defense counsel elicited on cross-examination of Stoneking and Agent Fox that Fox had merely filed reports of his conversations between himself and Stoneking relating to underworld activity in the St. Louis area. In justifying this holding, the majority states that:
“It is difficult to establish a particular bright line level of specificity that must be met by defense counsel to demonstrate that the information he seeks is a Jencks Act statement. It is clear that the more obvious it is that the statement is a Jencks Act statement, the less specific the foundation laid must be to meet the defense counsel’s burden of particularity.”
Majority opinion at 996 (emphasis added). The majority’s apparent concern is that if the defendant has not been able to review the government reports it is impossible for him to make a specific request to see a particular document and thus “the more obvious the statement is a Jencks Act statement, the less specific the foundation laid must be to meet the defense counsel’s burden of particularity.” This position encompasses an erroneous assumption that an FBI report, on its face, normally qualifies as a Jencks Act statement. Further, the majority’s holding fails to consider the purpose behind Jencks Act discovery rules that are designed to provide the defendant with impeachment material, if it exists, and is not to be used as a broad discovery device by defense counsel. I will initially address the majority’s failure to consider the purpose behind the Jencks Act.
The purpose of the Jencks Act is to produce statements to the defendant to be used to impeach government witnesses. Palermo, 360 U.S. at 349, 79 S.Ct. at 1223. If the witness has not yet testified as to any substantive matters at trial that relate to his discussions with the government agents, then the statements should not and need not be produced under the Jencks Act as no foundation has been developed in the record to impeach the substantive testimony of the witness. The clear and unambiguous language of the Jencks Act mandates that it is not applicable until such time as the witness has offered testimony that might be impeached. Thus, under subsection (b) the United States is only required to produce those statements “which relate to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified.” For example, in Goldberg, supra, the prosecution witness identified the defendant as the person engaged in the criminal conduct. The Supreme Court held that a sufficient basis in the record had been developed for the court to hold an in camera examination of the government documents concerning the witness’s discussions with government prosecutors since the witness testified that he had previously reviewed the government’s notes of his conversations for accuracy. Thus, if the reports in Goldberg qualified as statements (an issue to be determined upon remand) the statements might very well have provided impeachment material if the “statement relate[d] to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness.” 18 U.S.C. § 3500(b). In Goldberg the possibility existed that those prosecutor’s notes contained material that could impeach the testimony of the witness implicating the defendant. In United States v. O’Brien, 444 F.2d 1082 (7th Cir.1971), FBI agents testified on direct examination detailing the defendant’s activities during the time of the indictment. On cross-examination it was disclosed that they had the defendants under surveillance for a period of time pri- or to the time period contained in the indictment. Our court remanded the case to the district court for an in camera inspection of the reports stating:
*1012“whether the statements in question ‘related to’ the direct testimony of the witnesses, it must relate generally to the events and activities testified to____ [And] that within the context of the circumstances surrounding the continuing nature of entire transaction as it relates to the investigation and surveillance, the trial court erred in ruling as a matter of law that the statements in question were not producible....”
Id. at 1086 (citations omitted). Thus, under the circumstances in O’Brien a remand for an in camera inspection was necessary to determine if the report “related to” the agents’ testimony concerning their observations of the defendant. But if the witness has not testified or offered the “subject matter of the testimony” there is no testimony in the record upon which an effort to impeach the witness can be based.
In our case, the government offered the testimony of Agent Fox to establish how Stoneking became an informant for the government. Fox testified that he was contacted by Stoneking, who was then confined in prison. Stoneking told Fox that he could provide information concerning organized criminal activities in the St. Louis area if Fox could help arrange a transfer to a Federal Penitentiary closer to Stoneking’s home. Fox testified that Stoneking did provide him with information concerning the car bombings in the St. Louis area and “organized crime activities” in the St. Louis area, (Tr. 88-89) but the agent did not testify as to the substance of any of these conversations.2 The agent said nothing relating to or mentioning the defendant in these reports nor was the agent queried on cross-examination as to any of the details of these conversations. Thus no foundation for any possible impeachment was established. Defense counsel, however, sought to discover these reports filed with the FBI regarding this information concerning organized crime in the St. Louis area, but which did not concern defendant Allen. This evidence is not discoverable under the Jencks Act since the agent has not offered any substantive testimony on direct examination that could be impeached by these reports.3 Agent Fox did testify that Stoneking was not required, as a condition of his early release from prison, to work for the FBI and one could argue that his reports may contain information as to any deal struck with the FBI concerning Stoneking’s cooperation with the government that could be used to impeach his testimony. But Agent Fox explicitly stated that he did not file any reports concerning his negotiations with Stoneking regarding the conditions attached to Stoneking’s release from prison and thus no discoverable Jencks Act material exists that could impeach his testimony. Stoneking also testified on direct examination that he met with Agent Fox in prison and presented information regarding car bombings in the St. Louis area but he did not testify to the details of these conversations or that he had in any way participated in the criminal activity; he further testified that he worked as an informant for the FBI for two and one-half years following his release from prison. The remainder of his direct testimony concerned his contacts with Allen in the summer of 1983, subsequent to his release from prison. Again, Stoneking did not offer any substantive testimony as to his conversations with the FBI agent and thus there is absolutely no testimony in the record from my perusal of the same that could be impeached by these reports. The majority assumes that merely because the FBI filed a report detailing its conversations with Stoneking for pur*1013poses of documenting their continuous investigation into organized crime in the St. Louis area that these reports automatically become subject to the Jencks Act discovery rules. If, however, the witness has not offered any substantive testimony relating to those conversations (and as in this case those conversations took place prior to the witness being introduced to the defendant) there is no testimony in the record to impeach.4
The majority also erroneously assumes that the FBI report qualifies as a statement under the Jencks Act. The record discloses that defense counsel failed to lay the requisite foundation, as required by this court’s decision in Robinson, to justify this assumption. As previously noted a “statement” is defined as “a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him____” 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e). Stoneking testified that he had “conversations” with Agent Fox concerning organized criminal activities in the St. Louis area while he was in prison and that the FBI took notes of these conversations. To qualify as statements that could be used to impeach Stoneking at trial, the defendant must establish that these statements were signed or otherwise approved by Stoneking. Defense counsel failed to ask Stoneking whether or not he (1) wrote any statement for the FBI; (2) adopted or signed any statement for the FBI; (3) read any statement recorded or transcribed; or (4) had any statement read back to him for his approval by the agent. Thus, defense counsel failed to establish very basic Jencks Act foundation demonstrating that Stoneking signed or approved of any statement recorded in the FBI reports to justify his conclusion that the report contained Jencks Act “statements.” See Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 124, 96 S.Ct. at 1354 (Powell, J., concurring).5 If defense counsel had asked Stoneking whether he signed, adopted or even read part of the conversations recorded by the FBI, and Stoneking answered that he had not, then the issue whether the reports qualified as statements pursuant to the Jencks Act would be moot as any recorded conversation not approved by the witness Stoneking could not be used to impeach him. Defense counsel failed to lay any foundation, much less the requisite foundation, to come within the broadest perimeter of the Jencks Act. If the defendant fails to establish the requisite foundation through proper cross-examination, he cannot complain on appeal that the district court’s ruling is erroneous. See United States v. Rovetuso, 768 F.2d 809, 817 (7th Cir.1985). Indeed, this case is analogous to those cases where we have consistently held that the failure to make a specific objection at trial waives the right to raise the argument on appeal: “Because defendants failed at trial to raise [the issue] ... as a possible bar to the admissibility of the [evidence], defendants have waived that objection on appeal.” United States v. Laughlin, 772 F.2d 1382, 1392 (7th Cir.1985); United States v. Hickerson, 732 F.2d 611 (7th Cir.1984). As this court has previously stated, “it is not the responsibility of the prosecutor or judge to do the work of the defense counsel.” Ruiz v. Cady, 710 F.2d 1214, 1218 (7th Cir.1983).
*1014To avoid the problem concerning the insufficiency of the foundation at trial and to justify the conclusion that the contents of the FBI report sought by the defendant qualify as statements within the meaning of the Jencks Act, the majority assumes that the FBI reports are statements simply because Agent Fox testified at trial:
“We need not find that those reports clearly were statements, but only that because of precedent the district court had a responsibility to examine them. In addition, because it is not denied that they exist, and because as FBI reports they may be ‘statements, ’ the only remaining question is one of relevancy."
Majority opinion at 998 (emphasis added). See also majority opinion at 996 noting that “investigators’ reports, such as FBI agents’ reports, so clearly fall within the language of the Jencks Act ... that defense counsel need not establish that the report is signed by the witness to demonstrate that it qualifies as a Jencks statement.” I am at a loss to understand as to how the majority arrives at the conclusion “FBI reports” will usually qualify as statements within the meaning of the Jencks Act simply because an FBI agent testifies at trial. In Robinson, our court expressly disapproved of the broad discovery rule advocated by the majority opinion:
“Robinson made the claim for the first time at oral argument that since Mitchell [an FBI agent] had testified as a witness, any material in the documents written by him also constituted section 3500 material. This argument fails for two reasons. First, no specific documents were identified at trial. Second, ‘endorsement of this broad right would require either wholesale turnover of FBI files to any defendant on demand or, at a minimum that the trial judge examine for relevance and materiality all the reports filed by any government agent who took the witness stand____ [W]e decline appellant’s invitation to adopt such a broad (and unnecessarily unilateral) discovery rule. ’ ”
Robinson, 585 F.2d at 281 n. 10 (quoting United States v. Nickell, 552 F.2d 684, 689 (6th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 904, 98 S.Ct. 2233, 56 L.Ed.2d 402 (1978) (emphasis added)). Further, the majority reference to “precedent” is a bit mystifying as they have failed to cite a single case from any other circuit holding that FBI reports of themselves will ordinarily qualify as Jencks Act statements simply because an FBI agent testified at trial, thus justifying a request for an in camera inspection of those documents.6 Also, as previously not*1015ed, the credibility of Agent Fox was not an issue at trial since Stoneking was the person who had the contact with the defendant Allen, and who had allegedly “coerced” Allen into committing the crimes charged in the indictment. Agent Fox did testify at trial that Stoneking was not required to work for the FBI as an informant as a condition of his release from prison and thus the only possible manner in which his reports could be used to impeach him would be to demonstrate that he did in fact condition his help in securing Stoneking’s early release upon Stoneking’s express promise to act as an informant for the FBI. However, the agent expressly stated that he did not file any reports concerning the negotiations he had with Stoneking leading to Stoneking’s release from prison.7 Tr. at 125.
IV
From the innocuous questions asked of Stoneking inquiring as to whether he had “conversations” with the FBI and whether the FBI took notes of these conversations, and Stoneking’s affirmative response, the majority still holds that the Jencks Act discovery rules apply to the FBI reports in this case. Such a position, I fear, will lead to abuses and unnecessary delays in trials as attorneys may now stop a trial dead in its tracks and require our already over-burdened district courts to conduct in camera inspections of government files without the defense attorney initially even establishing sufficient reasons through proper cross-examination of government witnesses to justify such a request. This unnecessary, unwarranted interference of a criminal trial was not the intent of Jencks Act. Further, an added danger of encouraging “fishing expeditions” through government files is especially apparent in this case as the government attorney noted at trial that defense counsel represented several other defendants in pending trials with ties to organized crime in the St. Louis area and that:
“The government is in possession of voluminous reports and tape recordings and other materials where Mr. Stoneking has been talking to the F.B.I. over this long period of time. These concern other criminal matters ... the government characterized this [defense request for Stoneking’s statements] as a discovery device for other reasons.” (Tr. 159).
Because the majority engages in an unwarranted and unduly expansive interpretation of the Jencks Act discovery rules to accommodate the defendants’ obvious “fishing” and exploration expedition into the FBI files, I dissent.

. His only other testimony on direct examination concerning the role of the FBI in this case was that the FBI would set the tape recording devices in his car prior to his meetings with the defendant Allen.

. In fact, Agent Fox only testified that he filed reports of his conversations with Stoneking after Stoneking left prison when quizzed by defense counsel on cross-examination.

. Unlike the situation in O’Brien where the agents testified on direct examination as to the defendant's activities during the time of the indictment, but also filed reports concerning the defendant’s activities prior to the indictment, the reports filed by Agent Fox of his conversations with Stoneking while he was in prison can in no way relate to the defendant as Stoneking did not meet Allen until June 1983, some nine months after Stoneking was released from prison.

. For example, if a witness, as in this case, merely testifies to the fact that a conversation took place between himself and the government agent but did not detail the subject of that conversation, counsel could not introduce the government report detailing that conversation as there is nothing in the witness’s testimony in the record to impeach. If, on the other hand, the witness testifies as to the details of his conversation with the government agent, any report that the government filed regarding this conversation (assuming it qualifies as a statement) if it involves the defendant personally or any of his activities now before the court is subject to the Jencks Act discovery rules since it may be used to impeach the witness’s testimony. Of course, the government may contend that the report does not "relate to” the subject matter of the testimony and in such a case the court must examine the document in camera to determine its relevancy. 18 U.S.C. 3500(c).

. Even the majority in Goldberg recognize that some foundation must be established at trial to justify an in camera hearing. See Goldberg, 425 U.S. at 100, 109, 96 S.Ct. at 1343, 1347.

. The majority states that the role of our appellate court is not to “definitively determine that a document we have not seen is or is not a ‘statement.’" The majority either inadvertently or advisedly misconstrues the entire thrust of my dissent that defense counsel in this case failed to establish a proper foundation to support the Jencks Act request he made. We have not seen the specific FBI reports but the testimony concerning them clearly delineates and explains their content; specifically that they do not deal with any of the facts concerning the case in controversy. It is interesting to note that the majority does not at any time contest this in their finding that the reports have met the "minimal burden.” The reports describe conversations between FBI agents and the informant as to the content of the information he gave to the FBI concerning organized crime activities in the southern Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri areas. There is no testimony even remotely referring to the defendant Allen or the facts of this case. Thus, as pointed out in my dissent which the majority attempts to confuse in discussing the Jencks Act request, defense counsel, in failing to establish the relation of the reports to Allen’s case, failed to lay a proper foundation for his Jencks Act request. The majority, in creating a new “low level foundation" requirement is not supported in case law and completely ignores the requirements of the Jencks Act and the specific Congressional intent that the subject matter of the document requested must pertain to the subject matter of the testimony adduced at trial. The fact that the legislative history of the Jencks Act demonstrates that Congress intended the Act to "reaffirm" the Supreme Court’s decision in Jencks does not, as the majority contends, show that the Congress considered FBI reports as a “prime example of [a] document" that would qualify as a statement. The Jencks case simply held that the government must turn over documents whose contents relate to the subject matter of the testimony at trial. That is precisely what I argue in this dissent: defense counsel must lay a proper foundation for a Jencks Act request. Allowing defense counsel to request documents merely *1015on the basis of testimony that conversations unrelated to the case took place encourages "fishing expeditions” by defense counsel that will unnecessarily interfere with a criminal trial, contrary to the majority’s assertion that its "narrow holding” does not "catapult the Jencks Act into a broad discovery device.” The extra burden a decision of this nature places on the federal courts is too obvious. The majority’s creation of a "low level foundation” and its minimal burden requirement as well as the majority’s misleading construction of legislative intent are nothing but unsupported conclusions without recitation of any basis in law or the facts of this case.

. I am not, as the majority contends, “merely accepting the government’s assertions” as to what the FBI reports contain. Defense counsel was required to establish and failed to establish in his alleged foundational request for the Jencks Act material that the documents he sought had any relevance to Allen, much less his (Allen’s) asserted defense. Counsel for Allen was required to demonstrate with at least some particularity what the relationship was between the documents requested and Allen’s defense. To hold that the ambiguous and innocuous testimony defense counsel elicited from the informant and the agent was sufficient to support a Jencks Act request will force judges to examine documents any time defense counsel wants to "go fishing” in the government’s files. In effect, the majority has given an open invitation to the criminal defense bar to engage in a needless "fishing expedition.”