Court Opinion

ID: 9478623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:53:30.103381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:31.566755
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
While I agree with the majority that the District Court correctly held that Barry stated no relief outside the confines of Rule 6(e)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“Rule 6(e)(2)”), I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that he stated any entitlement to relief under that Rule. I recognize that the government has acknowledged that a cause of action could be maintained under Rule 6(e)(2), but find this unpersuasive. A concession by a party as to a matter of law, unlike a stipulation of fact, need not hinder a court from finding the proper legal view. See NLRB Local 6 v. FLRA, 842 F.2d 483, 485 nn. 6 & 7 (D.C.Cir.1988). Thus, despite “the apparent stipulation of the parties,” Majority Opinion (“Maj. Op.”) at 1324, I submit the proper view is that the contempt remedy for violation of the secrecy requirement of Rule 6(e)(2) is criminal, rather than civil, in nature. In reaching this view, I recognize that the reported decisions from the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits support the majority’s view rather than my own. In re Grand Jury Investigation (Lance), 610 F.2d 202 (5th Cir.1980) (“Lance”)-, Blalock v. United States, 844 F.2d 1546, reh’g denied en banc, 856 F.2d 200 (11th Cir.1988); see also United States v. Eisenberg, 711 F.2d 959 (11th Cir.1983).1
I believe that the true nature of contempt proceedings for violation of the se*1327crecy requirement is set forth in the concurring opinion in Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1552 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). In that unusual decision, both judges deciding the case (Judges Tjoflat and Roettger) expressed their view in a separate concurrence from their own opinion.2 As the majority here notes, the “official” opinion of the court did hold that Rule 6(e)(2) made available a remedy for breaches of secrecy by way of civil contempt. Id. at 1550-51. However, in their special concurrence, the judges agreed that were they not bound by the prior panel opinion in Lance they would reject it “as insupportable,” since “any reasonable interpretation of Rule 6(e)(2) ... forecloses the notion that the Rule provides a right of action for injunctive relief, enforceable by the district court’s civil contempt power.” Id. at 1553.3 Since we are not so bound, I would not inject into the decisional stream of this Circuit the virus already infecting the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits due to the Lance exposure. I commend to the interested reader the extended and scholarly discussion of civil versus criminal contempt in Judge Tjoflat’s concurrence and briefly summarize its contents which express my own view of the law on this subject.
As the majority here notes, the difference in civil and criminal contempt distills to an examination of the purposes the two contempts are designed to achieve. See Maj. Op. at 1324. Criminal contempt is “punitive, not remedial” and vindicates the authority of the court by punishing the person guilty of the contempt. Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1558 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). See also Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 441-42, 31 S.Ct. 492, 498, 55 L.Ed. 797 (1911). Civil contempt is designed to force compliance with orders of the court on behalf of the complainant, normally the beneficiary of the relief granted under such order. Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1559 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). See also United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 303-04, 67 S.Ct. 677, 701, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947). The nature of the relief reflects the identity of the prosecutor of each sort of contempt. “The party in whose favor the order has been entered initiates the civil contempt proceeding.” Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1559 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). As to “proceedings at law for criminal contempt,” these “are between the public and the defendant.” Gompers, 221 U.S. at 445, 31 S.Ct. at 499. The target of the Grand Jury in the case of a Rule 6(e)(2) violation may, of course, bring violations to the attention of the court. Indeed, like any other citizen, he should report to the court or the United States Attorney such violations of federal law. But, “[t]he bringing of a criminal contempt proceeding is a matter committed to the sole discretion of the district court or the prosecutor.” Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1561 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). The complaining “target” is no more a party to the proceeding than a victim witness in any other criminal case, and no more than a victim witness does he have the right to initiate a prosecution. Cf. Kienle v. Jewel Tea Co., 222 F.2d 98, 100 (7th Cir.1955) (following Gompers, 221 U.S. at 444-45, 31 S.Ct. at 499).
I agree with the concurring judges of the Eleventh Circuit that Congress has chosen the criminal, rather than civil, route in its 1977 amendment to Rule 6(e)(2), which created the present contempt remedy. See Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1558 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). The relevant sentence of the Rule reads as follows: “A knowing violation of Rule 6 may be punished as a contempt of court.” (Emphasis added). This language makes apparent the criminal nature of the relief created. As Judge Tjoflat noted, “[t]he word ‘knowing’ implies that criminal intent is a prerequisite to a finding of contempt. Criminal intent is not an element of civil contempt.” Blalock, *1328844 F.2d at 1558 (Tjoflat, J., concurring) (citing McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187, 191, 69 S.Ct. 497, 499, 93 L.Ed. 599 (1949); internal footnote omitted). Further, as noted above, remediation, not punishment, is the role of civil contempt. Punishment is the role of criminal contempt, and all the panoply of safeguards afforded criminal defendants protect the alleged contemner. Gompers, 221 U.S. at 444, 31 S.Ct. at 499. Cf. Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U.S. 506, 511-12 & n. 4, 94 S.Ct. 2687, 2691 & n. 4, 41 L.Ed.2d 912 (1974). Congress, therefore, could hardly have made it plainer in such a short pronouncement. that it intended criminal rather than civil contempt.
The reason for Congress’ choice of criminal punishment rather than civil coercion is likely related to the nature of the ends which each sort of contempt seeks to achieve. Under the Lance view, today adopted by the majority, civil coercion lies for unauthorized, unlawful release of material. It is difficult to see how such coercion could ever be efficacious. Typically, upon adjudgment of civil contempt, a court imposes the sanction likely to achieve compliance. For example, a judge jails the con-temner until he complies. If civil contempt is employed against someone who has leaked Grand Jury material, how long does the judge keep him confined? Does he remain in prison until he somehow removes leaked information from the news media and crams it back into Grand Jury secrecy? This, of course, is impossible. Does the judge, on the other hand, impose a continuing sanction until the contemner promises not to leak any more Grand Jury information? This is hardly useful and does nothing to remedy the contumacious breach of Rule 6(e)(2).
On the other hand, punishment is directed at past breaches. Insofar as it prevents further breaches, it acts with the same deterrent role as any other criminal penalty-
Before Congress adopted the contempt provision of Rule 6(e)(2), district courts had been prosecuting breaches of the common-law rule of Grand Jury secrecy for at least 80 years. See cases collected in Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1556-57 (Tjoflat, J., concurring). After Congress codified the common-law rule of Grand Jury secrecy by the enactment of Rule 6, this practice continued. See L. Orfield, The Federal Grand Jury, 22 F.R.D. 343, 402, 448 (1959). Nothing in the 1977 amendment adding the contempt provision indicated any intent to do other than codify the pre-existing practice.
The Lance rationale, already causing mischief in the orderly process of Grand Jury investigations in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, cannot help but interfere with our own. If Barry has a legitimate complaint about unlawful leaking (and on this I offer no opinion), then his proper course is to complain to the court or the United States Attorney about these acts of criminal contempt. It is for them to see to prosecution. Since Barry would not have standing to bring the action in the District Court a priori, he has no standing to appeal. I, therefore, dissent from the majority’s reversal and remand, and would dismiss this appeal.

. The case was originally heard by the usual three-judge panel, but was decided by a quorum of the panel when a member of the original tribunal recused himself after oral argument. Blalock, 844 F.2d at 1548 n. *.

. Since the Eleventh Circuit was created out of the old Fifth Circuit, decisions of the latter handed down on or before September 30, 1981, such as Lance, cannot be overruled by a panel of the Eleventh Circuit, but only by the en banc Court. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) en banc.