Court Opinion

ID: 9486041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:36:35.957856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:30.270729
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although the matter is not entirely clear, the majority seems to suggest that the factual distinctions drawn in footnote 8 of Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 352 n. 8, 94 S.Ct. 613, 622 n. 8, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974), which distinguish that case from Silverthorne, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920), are not controlling here. Instead, we should be guided by two policy considerations: (1) the desirability of limiting judicial supervision of grand juries and (2) the minimal deterrent effect of applying the exclusionary rule to previously suppressed evidence before the grand jury. Ante at 482-483.
Footnote 8 of Calandra distinguished Silverthome on three bases: (1) In Silver-thome, the defendants had already been in-dieted and could therefore invoke their status as criminal defendants in claiming the protection of the exclusionary rule, (2) the government’s interest in the documents in question there was based on their potential use in a criminal trial already authorized and were of no further use in carrying out the grand jury’s investigative or accusatorial functions, and (3) there had been a prior judicial determination that the documents in question had been obtained in an illegal search and there*484fore suppression of the documents would not require interruption of ongoing grand jury proceedings. All of these circumstances in which Silverthorne differs from Calandra are also found in the present case. Here we have criminal defendants seeking to disallow the grand jury’s use of documents that are potentially useful in a criminal trial and where the disallowance would not interrupt ongoing grand jury proceedings. Therefore, if Silverthorne is controlling, there seems to be a plausible case for dismissal of the superseding indictment. Since Silverthome is the work of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, we should pause respectfully before looking beyond it.
That having been said, however, I think the majority’s application of a more policy-oriented analysis here is permissible — at least in reviewing for abuse of discretion. Based on other authority cited by the majority, ante at 481-482, I think we need not feel compelled by Silverthorne to order dismissal of the indictment.