Court Opinion

ID: 9430917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:53.602455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.297699
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun join, dissenting.
Rule 6(e) greatly restricts the availability of grand jury evidence in order to preserve the secrecy and integrity of grand jury proceedings. Consistent with these concerns, in United States v. Sells Engineering, Inc., 463 U. S. 418 (1983), this Court rejected the contention that grand jury information is automatically available to any Justice Department Civil Division attorney. Essential to that conclusion was the principle that automatic access to grand jury material is appropriate only for the limited purpose of permitting a prosecutor to assist the grand jury, and that a Government attorney seeking to use grand jury information for civil purposes lacks such a *118justification. Id., at 431. Given this holding, it is simply irrelevant whether the attorney who desires to use grand jury information in a civil action worked with the grand jury at an earlier time. The crucial fact is that the use to which that attorney would put this information is in no way in aid of the grand jury. Nonetheless, the Court today holds that an attorney’s past connection with that body makes grand jury material automatically available to that attorney for the purpose of determining whether a civil complaint should be filed. The Court reaches this result only by adopting a severely restricted construction of the word “disclosure” in Rule 6(e). Because this construction ignores the substantive concerns of that Rule and is flatly inconsistent with the reasoning in Sells, I dissent.
I
The grand jury is an exception to our reliance on the adversarial process in our criminal justice system. As we have stated:
“[The grand jury] is a grand inquest, a body with powers of investigation and inquisition, the scope of whose inquiries is not to be limited narrowly by questions of propriety or forecasts of the probable result of the investigation, or by doubts whether any particular individual will be found properly subject to an accusation of crime.” Blair v. United States, 250 U. S. 273, 282 (1919).
By virtue of the grand jury’s character as an inquisitorial body, “there are few if any other forums in which a governmental body has such relatively unregulated power to compel other persons to divulge information or produce evidence.” United States v. Sells Engineering, Inc., supra, at 433.1 *119Persons may be summoned to testify even if no charge whatsoever is pending, Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 (1911), and even if they are only potential defendants, United States v. Wong, 431 U. S. 174, 179, n. 8 (1977). Except for privilege provisions, the Federal Rules of Evidence do not apply to proceedings before grand juries. Fed. Rule Evid. 1101(d)(2). The exclusionary rule is inapplicable in the grand jury context, United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338 (1974), as is the usual requirement that one demonstrate the reasonableness of a subpoena to appear and provide voice or handwriting exemplars, United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1 (1973). Furthermore, a witness generally is not permitted to have counsel present in the grand jury room while testifying. 1 S. Beale & W. Bryson, Grand Jury Law and Practice §6:16, p. 6-88 (1986).
These exceptional powers are wielded not on behalf of the prosecutor, but in aid of the grand jury as an “arm of the court.” Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610, 617 (1960). They are employed to permit the grand jury to fulfill its “invaluable function in our society of standing between the accuser and the accused ... to determine whether a charge is founded upon reason.” Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375, 390 (1962). Thus, the information generated by the grand jury’s inquiry is “not the property of the Government’s attorneys, agents or investigators, nor are they entitled to possession of them in such a case. Instead, those documents are records of the court.” United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U. S. 677, 684-685 (1958) (Whittaker, J., concurring). See also In re Grand Jury Investigation of Cuisinarts, Inc., 665 F. 2d 24, 31 (CA2 1981) (“[GJrand jury proceedings remain the records of the courts”), cert. denied sub nom. Connecticut v. Cuisinarts, Inc., 460 U. S. 1068 (1983).
Recognition of the unique purpose for which grand jury powers are employed informed our decision in Sells. In that *120case, we rejected the Government’s argument that the provision in Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(i) for disclosure of material to an attorney for the Government “for use in the performance of such attorney’s duty” made grand jury information automatically available for use by Justice Department civil attorneys. Subsection (A)(i), we held, justified automatic access only for the limited purpose of enabling prosecutors to perform their role of assisting the grand jury. “An attorney with only civil duties,” we stated, “lacks both the prosecutor’s special role in supporting the grand jury, and the prosecutor’s own crucial need to know what occurs before the grand jury.” Sells, 463 U. S., at 431 (footnote omitted). As a result, “‘[fjederal prosecutors’ are given a free hand concerning use of grand jury materials, at least pursuant to their ‘duties relating to criminal law enforcement’; but disclosure of ‘grand jury-developed evidence for civil law enforcement purposes’ requires a (C)(i) court order.” Id., at 441-442 (quoting S. Rep. No. 95-354, p. 8 (1977)).
Such a rule, we held, was as applicable to attorneys within the Justice Department as to attorneys in agencies outside it. 463 U. S., at 442. The legislative history of subsection (A)(ii), permitting disclosure to the prosecutor’s support staff, indicated, we said, that
“Congress’ expressions of concern about civil use of grand jury materials did not distinguish in principle between such use by outside agencies and by the Department; rather, the key distinction was between disclosure for criminal use, as to which access should be automatic, and for civil use, as to which a court order should be required.” Id., at 440 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).
The issue of automatic access by an attorney who earlier assisted the grand jury was not presented in Sells, and we did not reach it. Id., at 431, n. 15. As the above language indicates, however, Sells makes clear that the automatic availability of grand jury information is determined not by *121the identity of the attorney who seeks to use the material, but by the use to which the material would be put.2 Thus, it is irrelevant whether an attorney once worked with the grand jury — what matters is whether that attorney now does.
II
The Court today evades this logic by finding that no “disclosure” under Rule 6(e) occurs when an attorney who assisted the grand jury uses grand jury material in determining whether a civil suit should be filed. The premise of this conclusion is that Rule 6(e) prohibits only “those with information about the workings of the grand jury from revealing such information to other persons who are not authorized to have access to it under the Rule,” ante, at 108 (emphasis added).3 *122The Court declares that it need not inquire whether its construction of Rule 6(e) is consistent with the Rule’s purposes, since the Court derives that construction from its “reading of the Rule’s plain language.” Ante, at 109.
Before addressing the Court’s “plain language” argument, it is important to make clear just how seriously the Court’s interpretation of the Rule is at odds with the Rule’s underlying purposes.
The first interest furthered by the secrecy imposed by Rule 6(e) is encouragement of witnesses to testify fully and candidly. Sells, supra, at 432; Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Northwest, 441 U. S. 211, 219 (1979). The Court’s construction of the term “disclosure” directly conflicts with this interest, for “[i]f a witness knows or fears that his testimony before the grand jury will be routinely available for use in governmental civil litigation or administrative action, he may well be less willing to speak for fear that he will get himself into trouble in some other forum.” Sells, supra, at 432. The fact that the attorney utilizing this testimony received it directly from the grand jury, rather than from an attorney who worked with the grand jury, will hardly be relevant to a witness. It is the substance of the witness’ testimony that will expose him or her to civil liability, not the identity of the Government attorney who employs it for this purpose. The Court’s narrow construction of the term “disclosure” thus creates exactly the disincentive that Rule 6(e)’s restriction on disclosure is intended to prevent.4
*123A second major interest served by Rule 6(e) is protection of the integrity of the grand jury. The automatic availability of grand jury material for civil use creates a temptation to utilize the grand jury’s expansive investigative powers to generate evidence useful in civil litigation. In our society, the inquisitorial character of the grand jury is an anomaly that can be justified only if that body’s powers are used in service of its unique historical function. Governmental appropriation of grand jury information for civil use thus diminishes public willingness to countenance the grand jury’s far-reaching authority. Furthermore, circumvention of normal restrictions on the Government’s civil discovery methods “would grant to the Government a virtual ex parte form of discovery, from which its civil litigation opponents are excluded unless they make a strong showing of particularized need.” Sells, 463 U. S., at 434.
This concern about the use of grand jury information for civil purposes is reflected throughout the legislative history of the amendment adding subsection (3)(A)(ii) to Rule 6(e), which permits disclosure to nonattorneys for the purpose of assisting the prosecutor. We recounted this history in detail in Sells, supra, at 436-442, and there is no need to repeat it in detail here. The House of Representatives rejected the amendment as originally drafted because
“[i]t was feared that the proposed change would allow Government agency personnel to obtain grand jury information which they could later use in connection with an unrelated civil or criminal case. This would enable those agencies to circumvent statutes that specifically circumscribe the investigative procedure otherwise available to them.” H. R. Rep. No. 95-195, p. 4 (1977) (footnote omitted).
*124In response, the final version of the Rule sought
“to allay the concerns of those who fear that such pros-ecutorial power will lead to misuse of the grand jury to enforce non-criminal Federal laws by (1) providing a clear prohibition, subject to the penalty of contempt and (2) requiring that a court order under paragraph (C) be obtained to authorize such a disclosure.” S. Rep. No. 95-354, p. 8 (1977).
The Court’s construction of Rule 6(e) undercuts such objectives. The fact that there may be no expansion of the group of persons who possess grand jury information is simply irrelevant to a concern that the Government may seek to use the grand jury for civil purposes. If anything, there is even more motivation for such misuse when the prospective beneficiary in the civil context would be the prosecutor, as opposed to some other Government civil attorney. The Court’s decision today creates an incentive for the Government to use prosecutors rather than civil attorneys to prepare and file civil complaints based on grand jury information, a practice directly at odds with Congress’ intention to minimize the opportunity for using such information outside the grand jury context.5 This temptation to employ the grand jury as a *125civil investigative unit is clearly inconsistent with the intention that Rule 6(e) operate to impede the use of grand jury information for civil purposes.6 It is far more consonant with that intention to find that matters occurring before the grand jury are “disclosed” any time they are put to use outside the grand jury context, whether or not the attorney who uses them assisted the grand jury at an earlier time. There was “disclosure” in this case under that standard.
The Court avoids confronting the extent to which its decision undercuts the objectives of the Rule by maintaining that its construction of the Rule is compelled by the “plain meaning” of the word “disclosure.” It is surely unlikely, however, that a construction that produces results so clearly at variance with the concerns of the Rule is required by its “plain language.” Contrary to the Court’s approach, the purposes of the Rule, not dictionary definitions, have guided courts in construing this term of art. For instance, the Court’s assumption that “disclosure” does not occur when a party seeking to utilize information is already in legitimate possession of it is belied by “the well settled rule that a witness is not entitled to a copy of his grand jury testimony on demand, even though he obviously was present in the grand jury room during the receipt of evidence, since a rule of automatic access would expose grand jury witnesses to potential intimidation” by making it possible for those with power over the witness to monitor his or her testimony. Brief for *126United States 26, n. 20 (emphasis added).7 See, e. g., United States v. Clavey, 565 F. 2d 111, 113-114 (CA7 1978) (treating as “disclosure” access of grand jury witness to own prior testimony, noting “policy reasons justifying strict preservation of the secrecy” of grand jury proceedings); Bast v. United States, 542 F. 2d 893, 895-896 (CA4 1976) (treating as “disclosure” access of grand jury witness to own prior testimony, noting that “the secrecy of grand jury proceedings encourages witnesses to testify without fear of retaliation and protects the independence of the grand jury”). Cf. Executive Securities Corp. v. Doe, 702 F. 2d 406, 408-409 (CA2 1983) (treating as “disclosure” access to grand jury material by a party familiar with such material by virtue of earlier Rule 6(e) disclosure order). Thus, although the Court’s construction of the term “disclosure” would not encompass access to grand jury material by parties already familiar with such material, such access is routinely regarded as “disclosure” in certain instances because such a construction of the Rule furthers its basic purposes.
Furthermore, even relying on dictionary definitions, it is just as plausible to say that one “‘make[s] known or public . . . something previously held close or secret,’” ante, at 108, n. 4 (quoting Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 645 (1976)), when, as in this case, one takes information from a secret grand jury proceeding and puts it to use in the form of factual allegations recounted in a civil lawsuit. See n. 5, supra. By now, it should be apparent that the Court’s interpretation of the term “disclosure” is not compelled by the Rule’s plain language. Given this fact, the appropriate course is to determine which interpretation is appropriate by reference to the underlying policy concerns of Rule 6(e). As *127the preceding analysis demonstrates, the Court’s construction is seriously deficient by that standard.
The Court’s cramped reading of Rule 6(e) is particularly unjustified because the more plausible interpretation suggested above would not absolutely foreclose the Government from utilizing grand jury information outside the grand jury context. Rather, that interpretation would merely preclude automatic use of grand jury information, requiring a disinterested court in each case to weigh the need for grand jury secrecy against the need for civil use of the material. Even where judicial permission was not forthcoming, significant duplication of time and effort could be avoided by conducting the civil investigation first, and then referring cases for criminal prosecution. This is the procedure followed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which conducts an initial civil investigation and then refers cases for prosecution to the Justice Department if warranted. 15 U. S. C. § 78u(h)(9)(B). Similarly, since this Court held in United States v. Baggot, 463 U. S. 476 (1983), that grand jury material could not be disclosed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for use in a tax audit, the IRS conducts its own civil investigations, which may generate information useful in a subsequent criminal prosecution. In this case, the availability of expansive discovery powers under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1311-1314, would make it easy to avoid any purported duplication of effort.
Adoption of the interpretation urged by respondents therefore would impose no significant cost on the Government, and would be most consistent with the interests furthered by grand jury secrecy.
Ill
I would also affirm the Court of Appeals insofar as it held that the Antitrust Division was not entitled to disclose grand jury material to the Civil Division and United States Attorney’s Office, although for a different reason than that offered by the court below. The Antitrust Division sought this dis*128closure for the purpose of receiving advice whether filing a complaint on the basis of certain evidence would be consistent with Government enforcement policy. Most, if not all, of this evidence, however, was grand jury material, the use of which in a civil context had not been authorized by a court order. See n. 5, swpra. Since this evidence could not legitimately serve as the basis for a civil complaint without a court order, there was no justification for its disclosure to third parties at that point. In effect, the Antitrust Division sought disclosure to obtain advice about the strength of evidence that the Division had not received authorization to use in filing its complaint. As a result, there was no “need” for disclosure justifying an exception to Rule 6(e)’s general rule of grand jury secrecy.
IV
The Court today forsakes reliance on a disinterested judge to determine the propriety of the civil use of grand jury material in the circumstances of this case. The Court therefore leaves this decision entirely to the discretion of a party who stands to gain from utilizing the grand jury’s enormous investigative powers for the purpose of preparing a civil complaint. This interpretation of Rule 6(e) is fundamentally at odds with that Rule’s mandate that grand jury information be used for civil purposes only when, in particular circumstances, the need for the information outweighs the interest in grand jury secrecy. I dissent.

 See also United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 343 (1974) (“The grand jury may compel the production of evidence or the testimony of witnesses as it considers appropriate, and its operation generally is unrestrained by the technical procedural and evidentiary rules governing the conduct of criminal trials”); 2 S. Beale & W. Bryson, Grand Jury Law and *119Practice § 7:01, p. 7-4 (1986) (“[T]he grand jury has the most extensive subpoena power known to the law”).

 See also United States v. Sells Engineering, Inc., 463 U. S., at 428 (“[I]t is immaterial that certain attorneys happen to be assigned to a unit called the Civil Division, or that their usual duties involve only civil eases. If, for example, the Attorney General (for whatever reason) were to detail a Civil Division attorney to conduct a criminal grand jury investigation, nothing in Rule 6 would prevent that attorney from doing so; he need not secure a transfer out of the Civil Division”).

 The Court also rejects the position that, where an attorney who files a civil suit was permitted to use grand jury information to determine if that suit should be filed, a complaint relating to conduct that was the subject of the grand jury investigation necessarily discloses grand jury information. Instead, the Court notes that the complaint in this case did not specifically identify any information as the product of grand jury proceedings, nor have respondents identified “anything in the complaint that indirectly discloses grand jury information.” Ante, at 110. Determining somehow whether a complaint utilizes grand jury information is an inherently uncertain exercise, however, as is indicated by the Court’s speculation about the possible scenarios under which the Government might not have relied on grand jury information in filing the civil complaint in this ease. Ante, at 110, n. 6. To base the determination whether there has been disclosure on such shifting sands is fundamentally inconsistent with the spirit of Rule 6(e)’s stringent and categorical prohibition on automatic access to grand jury material. This is why it is preferable, as is set forth infra, to impose a bright-line prohibition on automatic access to grand jury material for any civil attorney.

 The Government is unpersuasive in arguing that this prospect is no more of a disincentive than the possibility that testimony will be revealed under the Jencks Act or under a Rule 6(e) court order. The Jencks Act authorizes the disclosure of grand jury statements only if the witness is called by the United States to testify at trial, only to the criminal defendant, and only to the extent that the statement relates to the subject matter of the witness’ testimony at trial. 18 U. S. C. § 3500. Disclosure under a Rule 6(e) court order requires a judicial determination that the need for disclosure “outweighs the public interest in secrecy,” Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Northwest, 441 U. S. 211, 223 (1979). These provisions for *123disclosure under limited circumstances hardly compare with the automatic, wholesale availability of grand jury information for the purpose of filing a civil complaint.

 Contrary to the Court’s assumption, there can be little doubt that grand jury information was used as the basis for the complaint in this case. The grand jury investigation produced some 250,000 pages of subpoenaed documents and transcripts of the testimony of “dozens of witnesses.” In re Grand Jury Investigation, 774 F. 2d 34, 40 (CA2 1985). Two of the three respondents refused to certify in response to a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) by the Government that all documents requested by the CID had been submitted to the grand jury. These respondents furnished no documents in response to the CID’s, nor did the Government attempt to enforce such demands. At least as to these two corporations, therefore, grand jury material is the only information that could have served as the basis for the civil complaint. The prominent role of grand jury material in preparing the complaint against respondents is underscored by the Antitrust Division’s request for a Rule 6(e) order authorizing disclosure to the Civil Division and the United States Attorney’s Office. As the Govern*125ment stated in that request, “The Antitrust Division currently is considering whether to bring a civil action, based on the evidence obtained in the course of its grand jury investigation, alleging violations of [the Sherman, False Claims, and Foreign Assistance Acts].” App. 10 (emphasis added).

 It is true that any given grand jury investigation may be challenged on the ground that it is intended to generate information for a civil suit. United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U. S. 677, 683-684 (1958). However, the need for a prophylactic rule against automatic disclosure rests on recognition of the fact that “if and when [grand jury misuse] does occur, it would often be very difficult to detect and prove.” Sells, 463 U. S., at 432.

 The prosecutor and the witness obviously differ in their respective bases for possession of grand jury information. The prosecutor’s access to it is authorized by Rule 6(e) (3) (A) (i); no such explicit authorization is necessary for the witness, of course, since he or she is the direct source of this information.