Court Opinion

ID: 9426680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:39.375211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:02.310398
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring.
My original reaction to the proposal to vacate and remand in the light of United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564, was exactly that expressed by Mr. Justice Marshall in dissent. For as a Circuit Judge I had the experience of trying to decipher similar Delphic orders, and I agree completely that a constitutional holding is not controlling on a question involving nothing more than an exercise of an appellate court’s supervisory power. Nevertheless, there is an omission in the Court of Appeals opinion which makes it appropriate for that court to re-examine its holding.
As the concurring opinions by Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart in Mandujano demonstrate, the fact that the prosecutor may have erred in failing to give a *910grand jury witness adequate warnings does not lead inexorably to the conclusion that the witness cannot be prosecuted for perjury. Cf. United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77, 82. The Court of Appeals opinion seems to assume that the conclusion necessarily follows from the premise. Since I think it would be appropriate for that court to address that precise point in the first instance, I acquiesce in the remand.