Court Opinion

ID: 9942140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-20 16:02:48.137862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:47:43.124255
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-12549    Document: 21-1     Date Filed: 02/20/2024   Page: 1 of 3

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-12549
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       JOHN DAVID MELTON,
       a.k.a. David Melton,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Southern District of Georgia
                  D.C. Docket No. 4:20-cr-00081-RSB-BKE-4
USCA11 Case: 23-12549      Document: 21-1       Date Filed: 02/20/2024     Page: 2 of 3

       2                       Opinion of the Court                  23-12549

                            ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               John David Melton appeals from the district court’s order
       denying his motion to dismiss the indictment based on challenges
       to a standing order regarding grand jury procedures utilized during
       the COVID-19 pandemic. In his motion, Melton argued that the
       standing order violated his Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury
       and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6 because it did not ensure
       grand jury secrecy, improperly permitted videoconferencing, and
       resulted in less than a quorum of the grand jurors being present in
       the same room. The government moves to dismiss this appeal for
       lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the district court’s order is not ap-
       pealable under the collateral order doctrine.
              We conclude that the district court’s order is neither final
       nor immediately appealable. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The order is not
       final because Melton has yet to be convicted or sentenced. See
       Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 263 (1984). And it is not ap-
       pealable under the collateral order doctrine because it does not in-
       volve a right not to be tried, which means it can be effectively re-
       viewed on appeal from a final judgment. See United States v. Shal-
       houb, 855 F.3d 1255, 1260 (11th Cir. 2017); Midland Asphalt Corp. v.
       United States, 489 U.S. 794, 800, 802 (1989) (stating that, to be effec-
       tively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment, an order
USCA11 Case: 23-12549      Document: 21-1      Date Filed: 02/20/2024     Page: 3 of 3

       23-12549               Opinion of the Court                          3

       must deprive a defendant not of the right not to be convicted, but
       of the right “not to be tried at all”).
               To the extent Melton argued that the standing order failed
       to ensure grand jury secrecy, that alleged violation does not impli-
       cate a right not to be tried because it is not “a defect so fundamental
       that it causes the grand jury no longer to be a grand jury, or the
       indictment no longer to be an indictment.” See Midland Asphalt
       Corp., 489 U.S. at 802. Additionally, we recently held that to the
       extent the same standing order at issue here violated Rule 6, that
       violation is not a “fundamental error” that “change[s] the basic na-
       ture of [the] grand jury or fatally infect[s] [the] indictment.” See
       United States v. Graham, 80 F.4th 1314, 1317-18 (11th Cir. 2023).
             The district court’s order is therefore not appealable at this
       time, under the collateral order doctrine or otherwise. The gov-
       ernment’s motion to dismiss is GRANTED and this appeal is
       DISMISSED.