Court Opinion

ID: 9494919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:50:07.526612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:42.369705
License: Public Domain

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring in the judgment;
I cannot agree with the majority opinion that prosecutorial misconduct is always re*777quired before the district court may exercise its supervisory role over grand jury proceedings. The majority takes a very narrow view of the circumstances under which this may be done, relying on Supreme Court opinions that, while referencing prosecutorial misconduct in their analysis of the appropriateness of a district court’s exercise of its supervisory powers, do not explicitly hold that such misconduct is required for the exercise of such powers. I am not convinced that the Supreme Court has cabined in the circumstances under which supervisory powers may be exercised to the extent suggested by the majority.
In United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 112 S.Ct. 1735, 118 L.Ed.2d 352 (1992), the Supreme Court explained that district courts may use their supervisory powers to enforce established rules and procedures intended to protect the integrity of the grand jury process. Id. at 46, 112 S.Ct. 1735. The Court drew a distinction between the permissible use of supervisory powers for the purpose of enforcing existing rules, and the impermissible exercise of supervisory powers for the purpose of creating new rules to govern the grand jury system. Id. at 46-47, 112 S.Ct. 1735. Thus, the Court stated that, as made clear by its decision in Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988), “the supervisory power can be used to dismiss an indictment because of misconduct before the grand jury, at least where that misconduct amounts to a violation of one of those ‘few, clear rules which were carefully drafted and approved by this Court and by Congress to ensure the integrity of the grand jury’s functions.’ ” Id. (citing United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 74, 106 S.Ct. 938, 943, 89 L.Ed.2d 50 (1986)(O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment)). In a footnote to this statement the Court pointed out that, in addition to the standards outlined in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6, other judicially-enforceable “standards of behavior for prosecutors (and others) are set forth in the United States Code.” Id., n. 6. Among the rules that the Court specifically identified in Williams were 18 U.S.C. § 1623, which prohibits perjury before a grand jury, and 18 U.S.C. § 1622, which criminalizes the subornation of perjury. Id. Thus, Williams establishes that the prohibition of perjury is among “the few, clear rules” that a court may enforce using its supervisory powers. And by listing “standards of behavior for prosecutors (and others) ” the Court intimated that misconduct independent of the government, if precluded by an established standard of behavior, could provide a basis for overturning an indictment. Id. (emphasis added).
Citing Williams, this Court has indicated that the “statutory prohibition against making a false declaration before'a grand jury” exemplifies one of the “few, clear rules” intended to protect the integrity of the grand jury’s functions. United States v. Greer, 137 F.3d 247, 251 (5th Cir.1998); see also United States v. Sullivan, 578 F.2d 121, 124 (5th Cir.1978); United States v. Cathey, 591 F.2d 268, 271-72 (1979)(sug-gesting that witness perjury could provide a basis for investigating a grand jury indictment). Other circuits have also suggested that perjury before a grand jury, even without prosecutorial knowledge, can provide a basis for dismissing indictments returned by the grand jury in reliance on the perjured testimony. See, e.g., United States v. Hyder, 732 F.2d 841, 845 (11th Cir.1984) (“[W]e refuse to adopt the proposition that, absent perjury or government misconduct, an indictment is flawed simply because it is based on testimony that later may prove to be questionable.”) (emphasis added) (citations omitted); United States v. Kennedy, 564 F.2d 1329, 1338 (9th Cir.1977) (“[Ojnly in a flagrant case, and perhaps only where knowing perjury, relating *778to a material matter, has been presented to the grand jury- should the trial judge dismiss an otherwise valid indictment returned by an apparently unbiased grand jury”).
The majority’s opinion disagrees with this reading of Williams, arguing that the phrase “prosecutors (and others)” should be interpreted narrowly, as simply descriptive of the nature of the sections of the United States Code in relation to which prosecutorial misconduct would trigger the exercise of supervisory powers. Ante at 772-73, 774-75: In support of this interpretation, the majority points to the fact that the Supreme Court has held on previous occasions that challenges to the reliability or competence of the evidence before the grand jury will not be heard. Ante at 774-75. Indeed, the majority notes that in Bank of Nova Scotia, the Supreme Court held that the fact that IRS agents gave misleading and inaccurate summaries to the grand jury was insufficient, in the absence of prosecutorial misconduct, to support a dismissal of the indictment because the complaint amounted to a challenge to the reliability of the evidence. Ante at 774-75.
But the Supreme Court’s holding that challenges to the reliability of evidence will not be heard, and its application of that rule in Bank of Nova Scotia, have no bearing on the question of whether, where there is an actual finding of perjury before the grand jury, dismissal of the indictment is appropriate. The rule that challenges to the reliability of evidence will not be heard flows directly from the distinction drawn in Williams between enforcing existing laws governing grand jury procedures, and creating new rules for the grand jury. Williams, 504 U.S. at 46-47, 112 S.Ct. 1735. Whereas to dismiss the indictment because of unreliability of the evidence would involve the creation of a new standard for the grand jury process, to dismiss the indictment because of perjury before the grand jury simply enforces existing legal standards.
The majority also points out that in Me-chanik, which the Williams Court quoted, Justice O’Connor discussed the “few clear rules which were carefully drafted and approved ... to ensure the integrity of the grand jury’s functions” in relation to prosecutors’ obligation to follow those rules. Ante at 775. However, nothing in Justice O’Connor’s statement indicates that those “few clear rules” apply exclusively to prosecutors; rather, as noted in Williams, the rules relating to behavior before the grand jury, such as the prohibition on perjury, apply to prosecutors “and others.” Williams, 504 U.S. at 46 n. 6, 112 S.Ct. 1735.
The majority’s final argument for requiring government misconduct before allowing dismissal of an indictment is that in Williams itself, the Court stated that “[w]e did not hold in Bank of Nova Scotia, however, that the courts’ supervisory power could be used, not merely as a means of enforcing or vindicating legally compelled standards of prosecutorial conduct before the grand jury, but as a means of prescribing those standards of prosecutorial conduct in the first instance ... It is this latter exercise that, respondent demands.” Williams, 504 U.S. at 46-47, 112 S.Ct. 1735. The majority latches oh to the fact that in this particular passage the Court spoke of prosecutorial misconduct, and argues that this suggests that the Williams Court understood the exercise of its supervisory powers to be limited exclusively to instances of misconduct by prosecutors, not others. Ante at 775-76. But the WiMiams Court’s reference to prosecutorial misconduct in that passage is easily explained by the fact that the primary issue on appeal in that case was whether dismissal of an indictment due to a prose*779cutor’s failure to present exculpatory evidence before a grand jury was appropriate. Because the central issue in that case was prosecutorial behavior, it was natural for the Court to speak in terms of prosecutorial misconduct. To read into this language an additional, never before discussed, requirement of prosecutorial misconduct for the exercise of supervisory powers, is a stretch. In the absence of a more explicit articulation of such a requirement by the Supreme Court, I would not limit a district court’s exercise of its supervisory powers in this manner.
Beyond the fact that Supreme Court precedent does not sufficiently support the rule upon which the majority relies, it is important to bear in mind that perjury by an ordinary witness that is not sponsored by or known to the government can also corrupt the grand jury process. Indeed, by criminally sanctioning the act of providing false material testimony to a grand jury, Congress has indicated that the integrity of grand jury proceedings depends in large part on grand jury witnesses providing honest testimony.1 When a grand jury is provided with perjured testimony, the integrity of its deliberations and decisions are threatened. That would seem to be precisely the sort of egregious, well-established grand jury misconduct that courts may use their supervisory powers to correct.
I am sympathetic to the majority’s concern that a rule allowing dismissal of an indictment without a showing of government misconduct would open the door to attacks on grand jury evidence, for which there would be great incentives. Ante at 775-76. However, it is only when a district court discovers that the grand jury process has been corrupted by a witness that knowingly deceived grand jurors by providing false testimony that the court may act to preserve the integrity of the grand jury process. This surely will be a rare occurrence. In order to invoke a district court’s supervisory powers over grand jury proceedings, a defendant must demonstrate that a witness knowingly lied to a grand jury about matters material to the grand jury’s investigation. In this case, the district court’s findings were at least partially supported by such evidence, specifically an admission of perjury by the witness. Only when faced with an admission of or conviction for perjury, or other such substantial evidence, should a district court exercise its supervisory powers to determine the impact of the perjury on the grand jury process. Certainly, a district court could not overturn a grand jury’s finding of probable cause based solely upon inconsistencies between the testimony of one witness and others. The majority also argues that it would be senseless to provide defendants greater protection before the grand jury than at trial, where due process is only violated if the prosecution knew of perjury. Ante at 775-76. However, at trial defendants have a greater opportunity to participate and uncover falsehoods thanks to the adversary process, whereas at the grand jury stage perjured testimony is likely to go unchallenged. See United States v. O’Keefe, 128 F.3d 885, 893 (5th Cir.1997).
I recognize that whether there is a pros-ecutorial misconduct requirement for the courts to exercise their supervisory powers is a difficult issue. However, it was not necessary to address it in the context of this case, inasmuch as the perjury did not
*780prejudice the defendant. See Bank of Nova Scotia, 487 U.S. at 255, 108 S.Ct. 2369 (“[A] federal court may not invoke supervisory power to circumvent the harmless-error inquiry prescribed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a).”). In the present case, the grand jury indicted the defendants for conspiracy to violate civil rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, while, as noted by the district court, Pineda’s perjurious testimony related to the possible existence of exigent circumstances justifying the Defendants’ warrantless entry into Pineda’s apartment. To be convicted of a conspiracy, defendants “need not ... have committed the crime that was its object.” United States v. Manges, 110 F.3d 1162, 1176 (5th Cir.1997) (citations omitted). Thus, even if the Defendant’s entry into Pineda’s apartment may have been supported by exigent circumstances, the grand jury could have concluded that, prior to entry, the Defendants conspired to violate Pineda’s and Navarro’s rights to be secure from unreasonable searches. Thus, Pineda’s perjury before the grand jury constituted harmless error, a fact that provides an alternate basis for vacating the district court’s ruling.
As a final note, while the majority does limit the circumstances under which the court may exercise its supervisory powers to situations where there has been prose-cutorial misconduct, it vacates for further proceedings. I would point out that it has been the appellees’ contention all along that the government did engage in misconduct, and that the district court should conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the government had knowingly sponsored Pineda’s perjury before the grand jury. Thus, the majority’s own reasoning would suggest that rather than rejecting the claim, it should remand for a determination of whether there was misconduct that would invoke the district court’s exercise of its supervisory powers.
For the foregoing reasons, I specially concur in the judgment only.

. Section 1623(d) supports the conclusion that Congress’ primary aim in passing the perjury statute was to protect the integrity of the proceeding. That section provides that a person who has perjured himself before a grand jury can immunize himself from prosecution by recanting his misstatements and thus facilitating the restoration of the grand jury's integrity. 18 U.S.C. § 1623(d).