Court Opinion

ID: 9483585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:25:19.077368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:42.711562
License: Public Domain

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with much of the majority opinion’s analysis. However, as discussed below, I cannot agree that, in light of the facts as found by the district court, the district court abused its discretion or otherwise erred in dismissing the indictment on the grounds of the government’s conduct. For that reason, I respectfully dissent.
*128As a preliminary matter, I note that this is a government appeal in a criminal case. We have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 to decide government appeals in criminal cases except where further prosecution is barred by the double jeopardy clause. Ordinarily, double jeopardy does not bar a government appeal from a ruling granting a defense motion for a mistrial or to dismiss on a basis unrelated to guilt or innocence of the offense charged, unless the government has pressured or provoked the defense into requesting a mistrial or dismissal. E.g., Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 676, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 2089, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982); United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 485, 91 S.Ct. 547, 557, 27 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971). In the present case, although I would argue that there was prosecutorial misconduct, the government misconduct was not intended to provoke the defense into requesting a dismissal. Thus, the double jeopardy bar does not apply.
We must first identify the reason or reasons why the district court dismissed the indictment in order to apply the correct standard of review. Op. at 125-26. “[Wjhile we review a due process dismissal de novo, we review both an inherent supervisory dismissal and a statutory dismissal for an abuse of discretion.” United States v. Jacobs, 855 F.2d 652, 655 (9th Cir.1988) (citations omitted). “A dismissal rooted in a failure to obey a discovery order lies within a court’s supervisory powers.” Id. (citations omitted); see, e.g., United States v. Tibesar, 894 F.2d 317, 319 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 79, 112 L.Ed.2d 52 (1990). In my view, the district court in the present case based its dismissal on both discovery and due process grounds. The district court based its dismissal in part on the government’s failure to comply with discovery orders, that is, the government’s failure to produce copies of all the statements of government witnesses before trial, and cited Fed.R.Crim.P. 16 in its memorandum and order. Mem. order at 2-3. However, the district court also based its dismissal of the indictment on the government’s “egregious conduct,” that is, the government’s intentional redaction of certain evidence and its concealment of the redaction from both the defense and the district court. Id. at 3. For this reason, I would review each ground under a different standard of review, the discovery ground for abuse of discretion and the due process ground de.novo. •
The redacted evidence consisted of several comments of the government informant to a listening postal inspector and a conversation between the government informant and the third-party (“Paul”) that occurred immediately before the October 18, 1990, drug transaction between the government informant and defendant, as well as the very beginning of the conversation between the government informant and defendant. See op. at 125 n. 1 (setting forth the very beginning of the conversation). The government informant, who had been waiting for defendant, spoke with Paul, who then left. The conversation between the government informant and Paul apparently ended just before the government informant began speaking with defendant. Thus, it does not appear that the government informant, Paul and defendant were involved in the same conversation or in partially overlapping conversations. Nonetheless, the . redacted evidence indicates that Paul was acquainted, indeed arguably familiar, not only with the government informant but with defendant and drug trafficking as well. The conversations between the government informant and Paul and between the government informant and defendant were recorded on one tape.
I agree with the majority opinion that the redacted evidence was not, strictly speaking, subject to disclosure under Fed. R.Crim.P. 16(a)(1)(A) or as exculpatory material under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87-88, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1196-97, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). See op. at 125-26, 27. As noted above, the redacted evidence consisted of a conversation between the government informant and Paul and thus was not a statement “made by the defendant.” For this reason, it was not subject to discovery under Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(a)(1)(A). Whether the redacted evidence was exculpatory material under Brady v. Maryland *129is a closer question. However, even assuming for purposes of analysis that the redacted evidence was exculpatory material, the redacted evidence was in fact disclosed before the trial was scheduled to begin and thus would have been available to the defense during trial. The redacted evidence was Jencks material (statement made by government witness or prospective government witness other than the defendant), but the production of Jencks material cannot be compelled until the witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case. See United States v. Taylor, 707 F.Supp. 696, 701 (S.D.N.Y.1989) (statements of defendant intermixed with statements of prospective government witnesses are Jencks material; court cannot compel pre-trial production,, but encourages pre-trial production as matter of sound trial management).
However, I would characterize the district court’s decision as more broadly based on the government’s failure to-comply, with discovery orders, specifically the government’s redaction of certain evidence and its subsequent concealment of the redaction. Mem. order at 3, citing Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(d)(2). Dismissing an indictment is a disfavored remedy for prosecutorial misconduct. E.g., United States v. Jacobs, 855 F.2d at 655. Nonetheless, I would hold the district court did not abuse its discretion or otherwise err in dismissing the indictment as a sanction for the government’s conduct in the present case. I would distinguish the present case from the typical failure-of-discovery case on the basis of the district court’s findings of bad faith and prejudice to the defense.
The record indicates that there had been many discovery problems in the present case and several related cases. On September 4,1991, at the end of a plea hearing in one of the related cases, the district court expressly referred to the on-going discovery problems in the present case and cautioned counsel that all Brady and Jencks material was to be disclosed before trial. Defense counsel, the magistrate judge and the district court understood that the government had produced or would produce all the materials, including Jencks material, subject to disclosure before trial. (Indeed, during the motion hearing, the government indicated that it had adopted an open-file policy. Tr. at 15.) On September 9, 1991, while reviewing other materials, defense counsel noticed the discrepancy between the government’s copy of the transcript and the copy of the transcript that had been provided to the defense in April 1991. On September 13, 1991, the government notified defense counsel that the earlier transcript was not complete and provided defense counsel with a copy of the complete transcript.
At the September 23, 1991, hearing on the defense motion to dismiss the indictment, the government argued that the redacted evidence was not Rule 16 or Brady material and that, if it was Jencks material, it had been disclosed at least three days before trial, as required by the local rules. Tr. at 10. The government also argued that it had redacted the conversation in good faith in order to protect the government informant and the integrity of the ongoing investigation and that it had not intended to conceal the redaction. Id. at 13, 16-17. In its oral findings from the bench, the district court noted that the propriety of any redaction could have been considered by motion and in camera review, id. at 30, and disapproved of the government’s unilateral redaction, id., and its continued “hiding” of materials. Id. at 11. In its - written memorandum and order, the district court found that the government intentionally photocopied the transcript in such a way as to conceal the fact that part of the conversation had been redacted, then concealed the redaction, and disclosed the complete transcript only after defense counsel inadvertently discovered the redaction. Mem. order at 2. The district court also found that the failure to provide the redacted evidence was prejudicial to the defense. Id. (noting that theory of defense was entrapment; defense should have been allowed to investigate Paul and his knowledge, if any, of the circumstances surrounding the drug transaction).
I would affirm the district court’s dismissal as an appropriate sanction for the government’s flagrant and prejudicial *130abuse of discovery or on due process grounds. The district court was not obliged to tolerate such egregious conduct on the part of the government. As Justice Sutherland observed in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935),
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 [or she] 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 [or she] may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he [or she] should do so. But, while he [or she] may strike hard blows, he [or she] is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his [or her] duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.