Court Opinion

ID: 9468039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:02:35.548734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:38.858141
License: Public Domain

BOWNES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion ably and fully sets forth the facts and pertinent cases. But I cannot accept its result. As a court, we must at all times preserve the integrity of our legal system. We cannot sanction or appear to condone deceitful and improper conduct by the Government.
A fair reading of the majority opinion can lead to but one conclusion: the Government behaved egregiously. The facts make it clear that the Government could easily have complied with its commitment to the magistrate that it “will inform the defendants, by not later than November 29, 1979, [of] the present status of its informant.” Not only did it blithely ignore its agreement, worse still, it withheld relevant information. Some months before the Petroz-ziello hearing, Agent Siebert had a chance encounter at the Holiday Inn with Larain, who told him that he had had a nightly show at the hotel and was still working there. Such information could obviously have facilitated the search for Larain, but the government agent dissimulated and did not reveal the full extent of his knowledge at the Petrozziello hearing. This was not the only instance of the Government’s breaching an obligation it made to the court. At the conclusion of the Petrozziello hearing, the prosecutor promised that his agent “would continue to find out where [Larain] is.” Five days after this representation, Agent Jorge testified that no one had told him to find Larain or even try to do so. Moreover, as the record indicates, the Government made but one telephone call to the informant’s apartment — hardly an assiduous effort to secure information as to his whereabouts.
In Davila Williams, as the majority notes, we stated that “[i]t would be serious misconduct for the government intentionally to withhold or falsify the Roviaro information.” United States v. Davila Williams, 496 F.2d 378, 382 (1st Cir. 1974). In my view, the tactics of the Government here constitute “serious misconduct.” While this court has not yet determined precisely how far the Government “must go to keep track of, or search for, an informer,” id. at 382, at a minimum the prosecution’s duty requires that it “produce correct information or at least have exercised diligence reasonable under the circumstances to locate the informer.” Id. The Government, as the majority concedes, did not satisfy the mandate of Roviaro; it did not furnish accurate and complete information to the defendant and failed to comply promptly with defendant’s request regarding the informant’s whereabouts.
The majority states that it would be compelled to reverse the convictions were it convinced that appellants had suffered prejudice.1 My colleagues, in effect, balance *18two factors — governmental misconduct and defense counsel’s failure to show prejudice — and give greater weight to the latter. This shifting of the focus from the Government’s misconduct to the tactics of defense counsel puts us in the position of condoning the Government’s actions. I assume that the majority would agree that at some point governmental misconduct cannot be tolerated or excused regardless of the actions of the defendant. Drawing the line is, of course, an arguable matter. I believe that the Government, which represents us all, should strive to be beyond reproach in the conduct of a prosecution; to expect less damages the sinews of our legal structure. For me, the issue is not whether defense counsel failed to show prejudice; the critical question is how the Government acted. The agents of government are repositories of the public trust and must be worthy of it. They should conform to a rigorous standard of probity. Nearly a half-century ago, the Supreme Court examined the duties of the government prosecutor and declared:
The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring a just one.
Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935). Those words still ring true and should apply to all those engaged in government service. I believe that the Government’s conduct was so improper as to require that we dismiss the indictment in the exercise of our supervisory powers, see United States v. DeJesus Boria, 518 F.2d 368, 373 (1st Cir. 1975).

. My brethren fault the defense for failing to show how Larain’s testimony would have been helpful to defendants. It is not clear to me how the defense could have made such a showing when they were deprived of the opportunity to interview the informant. The majority specu*18lates that the defense was not seriously interested in searching for Larain, but rather sought grounds for reversible error. Speculation is an uncertain enterprise, and for that reason I think it unwise to make too much of it. Defense counsel’s behavior, however, could be interpreted differently. My colleagues may presume too much about defense counsel’s cunning. The failure of the defense to present, either orally or in writing, the language of their proposed “missing witness” instruction and to object to the omission of it from the court’s charge hardly suggests astuteness or skillful tactics.