Court Opinion

ID: 9445661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:35:31.317401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:21.904925
License: Public Domain

■SWAIM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
This is another of many recent cases involving the privilege against self-incrimination which has been asserted in the course of federal grand jury investigations. A witness in a grand jury inquiry, unlike the accused in a criminal case, has never been allowed, by the simple expedient of claiming privilege, to refuse to answer any questions at all. 'To prevent the subversion of the public interest in the conduct of such proceedings, reasonable bounds have been placed upon the exercise of the privilege. Thus, the claim of privilege is confined to instances where the witness has reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer. Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486, 71 S.Ct. 814, 95 L.Ed. 1118.
It was incumbent upon the District •Court, in appraising the claim of privilege, to consider the setting and background in which the question was asked and such other circumstances as might make the question incriminatory. Hoffman v. United States, supra. Turning to the record before us we find the following: A federal district grand jury was engaged in an investigation into alleged racketeering activities in the Eastern District of Illinois and particularly the activities of one Frank Wortman. We know as a matter of common knowledge that there exists a class of persons who live by activity prohibited by federal criminal laws and that some of these persons would be summoned as witnesses in this grand jury investigation. Appellant was summoned under an assumed name to appear before the grand jury as a witness. Except for an alleged association with one Barney Barts, it does not appear that appellant has a reputation and known history as an underworld character. And except for certain newspaper articles, there is nothing in this record that indicates or even suggests that appellant was called to testify before the grand jury as anything other than a good citizen who might be able to throw light upon the matter under investigation — I realize, of course, that circumstances can present themselves where even a good citizen may have occasion to exercise his privilege.
After appellant had appeared before the District Court for the second time and had been directed to answer certain questions, she returned to the grand jury room where the questioning was resumed.
“Q. Where did you live before that? A. 205 West Lincoln, Caseyville, Illinois. * x- -x- * x- *
“Q. How long did you live there? A. About a year, I guess.
“Q. Where did you live before you lived at Caseyville ? A. Collinsville.
“Q. Where in Collinsville? A. Moffatt Avenue. These are not the questions the Judge ordered me to answer are they?” (Emphasis added.)
Appellant promptly refused to answer the next two questions asked of her. I think appellant’s conduct belies her claim of privilege and shows her to be nothing other than a reluctant witness, disposed to make a specious claim that might relieve her from testifying, though not for the purpose of protecting herself against self-incrimination.
The newspaper articles on which appellant so heavily relies were excluded by the District Court on the government’s objection thereto. However, I think the result in this case should be *188the same even when appellant is given the benefit of the disputed newspaper articles. Appellant asserts that the articles link her with Barney Barts, a person who has evaded service of a grand jury subpoena and is in hiding, and who is a close associate of Workman, the key figure in the investigation; and that some of the witnesses who have appeared before the grand jury have had indictments returned against them. Even upon the assumption that government counsel was intent on delving into the relationship of appellant with Barts, with all the incriminatory implications suggested by appellant, I am at a loss to see how this could possibly make the particular question which she refused to answer incriminatory. Under no reasonable hypothesis could a responsive answer to this question furnish evidence of guilt or supply a lead to obtaining such evidence.
Appellant’s most plausible argument — ■ that she might be hiding Barts and consequently guilty of obstructing justice —is too tenuous, for how can it be said that disclosure by appellant of her place of residence in 1955, more than a year before the grand jury was empaneled and before Barts was ever sought as a witness, would be incriminatory. On this record even the loose test enunciated in United States v. Coffey, 3 Cir., 198 F.2d 438, 440, is not met, for even granting that counsel for appellant has shown “by argument how conceivably a prosecutor, building on the seemingly harmless answer, might proceed step by step to link the witness with some crime against the United States,” the suggested course and linkage here are too far removed from the question which appellant refused to answer. It is, of course, true that one in appellant’s apparent situation faces a problem — waiver of her privilege, if she answers a question later held to be incriminating, see Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 438, 95 L.Ed. 344, and contempt, if she refuses to answer a question later held to be nonincriminating. “And it may be that in some circumstances the privilege should be held to extend to questions which are not in themselves incriminatory, but which seem likely to lead to other questions which are,” Emspak v. United States, 349 U.S. 190 212, 75 S.Ct. 687, 708, 99 L.Ed. 997, and this is what the majority has done in the instant case. But I fail to see any circumstances here which would warrant an extension of the usual bounds of the privilege.