Court Opinion

ID: 9453255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:08:12.034956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:35.073433
License: Public Domain

MEDINA, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent. But I do not dispute the fact that there is no constitutional obstacle to the presentment of a case to the grand jury by means of hearsay evidence. Such a view is foreclosed by Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 76 S.Ct. 406, 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956). My point has a double aspect. As the grand jury may and often does refuse to indict, it seems to me that it is only just and fair to require the prosecutor at least to warn the grand jury that most or all of the proofs presented are at second hand. Of even greater significance, in my opinion, is the evil practice, especially in narcotics cases, of using before the grand jury only a peripheral witness, who recites in more or less narrative fashion what other narcotics agents have seen, heard or done. The key witness, in this case Scott, is not produced; nor is the grand jury told in any intelligible way that the principal witness to the commission of the crimes has not been produced. The inevitable consequence of this procedure is to make it impossible for the defense, by demanding production of the grand jury minutes' at the trial, to use con*452tradictions and misstatements of the principal witness under oath to impeach him.
I remember the days when it was like pulling teeth to get a federal judge to hand over grand jury minutes to defense counsel for purposes of cross-examination. But those times have passed and, in a more enlightened age, it is thought more consistent with the accused’s right to defend himself to permit his counsel, generally as a matter of course, at least in this Circuit, to see the grand jury testimony of trial witnesses for the prosecution and to permit the use on cross-examination of these witnesses of such parts of the grand jury testimony as counsel deems to be contradictory. What is the use of such a practice, established in the cause of truth and justice, if the prosecutor can in effect return to the old system by the simple expedient of withholding key witnesses from the grand jury hearing?
These narcotics agents are not sacrosanct. The only way to make them mend their ways is, in the exercise of our supervisory powers, to reverse a few convictions obtained in this manner.
Generally speaking our Court has passed over this particular practice, as does the majority opinion in this case, by citing Costello and saying that we have never held that an indictment should be dismissed “because it was secured by hearsay testimony.” But in United States v. Umans, 368 F.2d 725 (2d Cir. 1966), the following was the unanimous view of a panel of this Court:
While we are not condemning the procedure used here before the grand jury, we think it not amiss for us to state that excessive use of hearsay in the presentation of government cases to grand juries tends to destroy the historical function of grand juries in assessing the likelihood of prosecu-torial success and tends to destroy the protection from unwarranted prosecutions that grand juries are supposed to afford to the innocent. Hearsay evidence should only be used when direct testimony is unavailable or when it is demonstrably inconvenient to summon witnesses able to testify to facts from personal knowledge. 368 F.2d at page 730.
With all due respect for my brothers, I cannot see how this is any test at all. It surely does not go to the point I am making in this dissent. How is one to know when the use of hearsay is “excessive” ? In this very case it is claimed that direct testimony was unavailable and that it was demonstrably inconvenient to summon Scott as a witness before the grand jury, simply because he had been working late the night before the case was presented to the grand jury and because of the limited number of narcotics agents.
Moreover, in this case the failure to call Scott to testify before the grand jury might have brought about a conviction that otherwise would have been an acquittal. At the trial Scott admitted he had not been able to identify the man who came into Beltram’s room on the night of the second purchase of cocaine. But, in his recital to the grand jury of what Scott had seen, Smith unequivocally said that Scott did identify Colon. Had Scott given any such testimony before the grand jury it would inevitably have been brought out on cross-examination at the trial, after perusal of the grand jury minutes, and, at the very least, Scott’s credibility would have been impaired, especially as the testimony that he could and did identify Colon and that he could not and did not identify Colon given on the two occasions respectively was under oath. On the other hand, had Scott been produced and had he testified to the grand jury that he was unable to identify Colon, the grand jury might have refused to indict.
While the Supreme Court at first granted certiorari in Umans and then later dismissed the certiorari as improvidently granted, 389 U.S. 80, 88 S.Ct. 253, 19 L.Ed.2d 255 (Nov. 6, 1967), it may well be that the reason for the dismissal was that the point was not directly raised in Umans. But it was directly raised *453and passed upon by the trial judge in this case.
Accordingly, I agree with my brother Friendly’s dissent in United States v. Payton, 363 F.2d 996, 999 ff. (2d Cir.), cert, denied 385 U.S. 993, 87 S.Ct. 606, 17 L.Ed.2d 453 (1966), and would reverse the judgment below as against both appellants and dismiss the indictment. This would not let appellants go scot free, as there would be time to reindict them and have their guilt or innocence passed upon again on a record not tainted with irregularity.