Court Opinion

ID: 9458676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:59:05.033763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:51.548338
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND SUGGESTION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
HUFSTEDLER, Circuit Judge:
In seeking a rehearing, the Government makes three contentions: (1) The rationale of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Branzburg v. Hayes, In Matter of Pappas, and United States v. Caldwell (1972) 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626, is inconsistent with our reasoning in Bursey, requiring us to reconsider our disposition of the First Amendment issues. (2) Our distinction between relevancy of questions to the subject matter of the grand jury investigation and relevancy of the same questions to the subject matter of the investigation as to which the witnesses were immunized is contrary to prior authority. (3) Our requirement that the grand jury must show a logical connection between the subject of the question and the subject matter of the investigation for which the witness was immunized to enable it to lay the foundation for contempt impermissibly invades the traditional secrecy of grand jury proceedings. We reject all three contentions.
First, Branzburg, Pappas, and Caldwell are not inconsistent with either our reasoning or the result we have reached. The central issue in the newsmen’s trilogy was whether the First Amendment protects a newsman from enforced disclosure to a grand jury of his confidential sources of information. The press function with which the Court was concerned was news gathering.
News gathering is not involved in our case.1
The question whether the First Amendment ever protects a newsman from being required to appear before a grand jury, a subsidiary issue in the newsman’s trilogy, never arose here. Bursey and Presley repeatedly appeared and testified.
We have rejected, as did the Supreme Court, arguments that the district court could and should require the Government or the grand jury to make a preliminary showing before the grand jury can ask questions of the witnesses. (Compare Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, 408 U. S. at p. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, with Bursey v. United States, supra, 466 F.2d at p. 1073.) We require limited showings only after the witnesses decline to answer questions asserting their First and Fifth Amendment rights and only when the grand jury seeks to compel answers through the contempt power of the court.
Nothing in Bursey permits a grand jury witness to refuse on First Amendment grounds to identify a person whom *1091he has seen committing a crime. Indeed, we have held that the witnesses can be required to answer questions much less directly related to criminal conduct. (Bursey v. United States, supra, 466 F.2d at p. 1083.) We refused, however, to issue a carte blanche to a grand jury to override First Amendment rights simply because the questions that the witness refused to answer might have something vaguely to do with conduct that might have criminal consequences. We were obliged to draw some lines that were not on the Supreme Court’s balance sheet. Thus, we required the grand jury to establish that there was a “substantial connection” between the information sought and the criminal conduct which the Government was investigating before the witnesses could be held in contempt for refusing to answer questions that cut deeply into First Amendment rights.
Although there is some language in Mr. Justice White’s opinion in Branzburg (408 U.S. at p. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646) implying that a grand jury investigation carries with it ingredients that may favor balance for the Government as against the First Amendment, the passage does not purport to disavow the balancing standards enunciated in such cases as DeGregory v. Attorney General of New Hampshire (1966) 383 U.S. 825, 86 S.Ct. 1148, 16 L.Ed.2d 292; Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (1963) 372 U.S. 539, 83 S.Ct. 889, 9 L.Ed.2d 929, and Bates v. Little Rock (1960) 361 U.S. 516, 80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed. 2d 480.2
We have reexamined our analysis of the factors involved in balancing the First Amendment rights against the governmental interests asserted to justify compelling answers to the questions here involved, and we have concluded that the balance we struck is not impaired by Branzburg.
Second, the distinction we drew between relevancy of questions to the grand jury investigation and relevancy of the same questions to the grant of immunity is not contrary to prior authority. In Brown v. United States (1959) 359 U.S. 41, 79 S.Ct. 539, 3 L.Ed.2d 609, the questions that the witness refused to answer were conceded to be relevant to the subject matter of the immunized investigation. (Id. at 42, 79 S.Ct. 539.) The precise issue was not raised nor decided in United States v. Weinberg (9th Cir. 1971) 439 F.2d 743 and Carter v. United States (9th Cir. 1969) 417 F.2d 384, cert. denied 399 U.S. 935, 90 S.Ct. 2253, 26 L.Ed.2d 807, rehearing denied, 400 U.S. 855, 91 S.Ct. 27, 27 L.Ed.2d 93.
We recognize that there are dicta from the Third and Seventh Circuits that imply that immunity conferred under former 47 U.S.C. § 409(l) was coextensive with the questions asked. (See In re Grand Jury Investigation of Giancana (7th Cir. 1965) 352 F.2d 921, cert. denied, Giancana v. United States, 382 U.S. 959, 86 S.Ct. 437, 15 L.Ed.2d 362, and Marcus v. United States (3d Cir. 1962) 310 F.2d 143, cert. denied, 372 U.S. 944, 83 S.Ct. 933, 9 L.Ed.2d 969.) We doubt that the same courts would construe Section 2514 as they did Section 409 (Í). But if our doubts are groundless, we would reject their construction of Section 2514, and we would continue to rely on the reasoning of Chief Judge Friendly in In re Vericker (2d Cir. 1971) 446 F.2d 244, 247-248.
Third, we reject the argument that our foundational requirements impermissibly invade the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. Secrecy for secrecy’s sake in the conduct of government has little to recommend it in a free society. The three principal reasons advanced to preserve secrecy in grand jury investigations are: to aid law enforcement by forestalling flight, preventing the loss of testimony, and the like; to facilitate the investigation by encouraging disclosures without fear of reprisal; and to protect the innocent from groundless accusation. We fail to see how the limited disclosures *1092that we require would impair any of those objectives.
Both in Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, 408 U.S. at p. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, and in Gravel v. United States (1972) 408 U.S. 606, at 680 n. 18, 92 S.Ct. 2614, 33 L.Ed. 2d 583, the Court reaffirmed the power and the duty of the district court to keep grand jury proceedings within constitutional bounds. That power is forfeited and the duty is barren if the Court cannot penetrate the shield of secrecy enough to see any assaults upon the constitutional ramparts.
The petition for rehearing is denied. The full court has been advised of the suggestion for an en banc hearing. No judge has requested a vote thereon. Accordingly, the suggestion for a rehearing en banc is rejected.

. In the early stages of the contempt proceeding when the district court had only a peripheral look at the investigation, the district court thought that a newsman’s privilege, similar to Caldwell, was at issue in Bursey. As the proceedings advanced, the district court retreated from its earlier view. (In re Grand Jury Witnesses, 322 F.Supp. 573, 577-578 (N.D.Cal.1970).) When the record unfolded before us, it became evident that Caldwell presented a different problem and that news gathering was never a real issue here. (See Bursey v. United States (9th Cir. 1972) 466 F.2d p. 1084 and n. 18).

. Mr. Justice Powell’s reading of Mr. Justice AYhite’s opinion reinforces our view of the limited reach of the plurality’s rationale. Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, 40S U.S. at pp. 709-710, 92 S.Ct. 2670 (concurring opinion).