Court Opinion

ID: 9459339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:18:05.935678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:07.708190
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Chief Judge
(dissenting) :
However desirable the result reached by the majority may be from a policy standpoint, I cannot agree that either 28 U.S.C. § 332 or the inherent supervisory power of a court of appeals authorizes a judicial council to direct by rule how a district judge shall exercise his discretion in determining whether dismissal of an indictment shall be with or without prejudice. The legislative history of § 332, recited in my brother MANSFIELD’s excellent opinion, has an import to me just the opposite of what it has to the majority. I agree that § 332 gives the judicial council a plenitude of powers with respect to the administration of the district courts, not only over the work of individual judges but over the courts themselves. However, Chief Justice Groner’s reference to the then lack of authority “to require a district judge to speed up his work or to admonish him that he is not bearing the full and fair burden that he is expected to bear, or to take action as to any other matter which is the subject of criticism” cannot fairly be expanded, without unduly defying the principle of ejusdem generis, to telling a district judge that he must invariably exercise his judicial discretion with respect to the effect of the dismissal of an indictment in a par*363ticular way. The majority’s reading also seems to me to put more weight on the very general remarks of Representative Celler, twenty-two years after § 332 was enacted, than they can fairly bear. The action of our Judicial Council in fleshing out F.R.Cr.P. 48(b) by giving specific content to the phrase “unnecessary delay” seems to me to have gone to the verge of its power under § 332. I can find no basis for taking the further step of holding that Congress meant to empower a judicial council to adopt a rule that would withdraw the district judge’s discretion, admittedly afforded by Rule 48(b), to dismiss either with or without prejudice as he deemed appropriate. While refusal to dismiss with prejudice in a particular case may be an abuse of discretion, the remedy for this is not mandamus, Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 88 S.Ct. 269, 19 L.Ed.2d 305 (1967), but appeal from a conviction on a new indictment if conviction there would be.
I should have written in greater depth save for the fact that, with the adoption of F.R.Cr.P. 50(b) and of district court rules for the prompt disposition of criminal cases thereunder, the power of the Judicial Council to direct dismissal with prejudice for violation of its Rules for the Prompt Disposition of Criminal Cases will now be academic for the future. Rule 50(b) clearly empowers a district court, with the approval of the reviewing panel, to provide that dismissal shall be with prejudice, as has now been done. However, it is worth noting that Rule 4 of the district court rules which have been approved in our circuit, see fn. 2 to the majority opinion, affords a measure of flexibility not contained in the Second Circuit Rules for the Prompt Disposition of Criminal Cases, which, having well served the important purpose that led to their adoption, have now been repealed on the effective date of the new district court rules.
I would deny the writ.