Court Opinion

ID: 9541331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:24:30.779913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:45.331239
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree that the Investigating Grand Jury Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 4549(b), does not permit disclosure of grand jury information to the Philadelphia Water Department or the Law Department. Since the Act authorizes a limited breach of the secrecy which ordinarily (and quite properly for the *463protection of the rights of the witnesses) accompanies a grand jury investigation, the disclosure provisions must be strictly construed. Thus, the orders authorizing such disclosures to agencies that were not “investigating crimes” within the meaning of section 4549(b) are improper.
However, I must dissent to the creation by the majority of a second “group to which [the Commonwealth attorneys] may validly disclose grand jury evidence....”, namely, “parties who are sworn to secrecy by the court and receive judicial approval to learn of grand jury evidence in their capacity as agents of the prosecutor for the exclusive purpose of assisting in the investigation before the grand jury.” (at 1132). The majority then holds that if “disclosures have been made to members of the Water Department as ‘experts’, respondent may permit those experts to review the grand jury evidence, but they must be sworn to secrecy and the evidence may not be released from respondent’s custody.”
In creating this new “valid disclosure group” with virtually no analysis or authority,1 the majority seems to have *464drawn from the language of the last two sentences of section 4549(b). (“Otherwise a juror, attorney, interpreter, stenographer, operator of a recording device, or any typist who transcribes recorded testimony may disclose matters occurring before the grand jury only when so directed by the court. All such persons shall be sworn to secrecy, and shall be in contempt of court if they reveal any information which they are sworn to keep secret.”). In so doing, the majority fails to heed its own restriction; the majority opinion noted that the above quoted portion of section 4549(b) “cannot reasonably be read to enlarge the scope of disclosure permitted to Commonwealth attorneys by the specific language of the preceding sentences.” (at 1131, n. 4). Yet this is exactly what the majority does — it enlarges the “disclosure by attorneys for the Commonwealth” provision to include “agents of the prosecutor” who are not otherwise affiliated with “law enforcement or investigating agencies . . . investigating crimes . . . . ” so long as these “expert/agents” have been sworn to secrecy. There is no language in the Act which would support such a general “agent of the prosecutor” disclosure group and, given the requisite strict construction of the disclosure provisions, this Court is not at liberty to create such a group.
Accordingly, I concur with the first portion of the majority order (“if disclosures have been made to parties that do not come within these exceptions, the court is directed to enter an order requiring those parties to return all disseminated materials forthwith to the court, and to make no use of the disseminated grand jury evidence in any civil investigation or proceeding or for any other purpose”) but I cannot subscribe to the second portion of the majority order (“If disclosures have been made to members of the Water Department as ‘experts,’ respondent may permit those experts to review the grand jury evidence, but they must be sworn to secrecy and the evidence may not be released from respondent’s custody.”)

. The only authority offered for the proposition is the comment to Pa.R.Crim.Pro. 263. However, neither the rule nor the comment support the disclosure group created by the majority in derogation of the Act. The rule and comment provide in relevant part:
(c) Other Disclosures: Upon appropriate motion, and after a hearing into relevancy, the court may order that a transcript of testimony before an investigating grand jury, or physical evidence before the investigating grand jury, may be released to another investigative agency, under such other conditions as the court may impose.
Comment: It is intended that the “official duties” of the attorney for the Commonwealth may include reviewing investigating grand jury testimony with a prospective witness in a criminal case stemming from the investigation, where such testimony relates to the subject matter of the criminal case. It is not intended that a copy of such testimony be released to the prospective witness, (emphasis added)
It is rather clear that “may be released to another investigative agency” must be limited to those agencies contemplated by 42 Pa.C.S. § 4549(b). It is also apparent that the comment offers no support for the majority’s disclosure group since there is no suggestion in the proceedings below that the “expert/agents” are “prospective witnesses in a criminal case stemming from the investigation.”