Vance V. ALLEN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
No. 20955.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Oct. 10, 1967. Decided Jan. 25, 1968.
390 F.2d 476
Mr. Albert W. Overby, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty., Frank Q. Nebeker and John H. Treanor, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before EDGERTON, Senior Circuit Judge, and TAMM and LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judges.
LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:
Following a jury conviction, appellant was given concurrent sentences of one to three years for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, and six months for simple assault. Both sentences were suspended, and appellant was placed on probation for three years. We hold the cause must be remanded for the trial
The Government‘s case rested heavily on Tassa‘s testimony. Apart from witnesses who established that appellant lacked permission of the lawful owner to use the vehicle, the only other government witness was one Earvel Jeffries, a passenger in the car at the time appellant was apprehended and the alleged victim of the assault. However, Jeffries could give little testimony as to the critical period—it developed that he was intoxicated and that he “blacks out” when suffering from that condition—and indeed he testified that he did not remember either ever having seen appellant previously, or having been in a car or talked to police officers.
Officer Tassa testified1 that shortly after 3:30 a. m. on the morning of December 27, 1965, his attention was drawn to a Chevrolet station wagon being driven at an extremely slow speed with headlights off. Tassa followed the car, which moved slowly into an alley. The officer activated the flashing beacon atop his squad car and beeped his horn, whereupon the car was stopped. He approached the car, intending to issue a traffic citation for night driving without headlights.
Officer Tassa‘s testimony continued: He came up to the halted vehicle from the driver‘s side and asked the driver, appellant, to produce his driver‘s permit and automobile registration. He noticed that there was another man (Jeffries) slumped over in the right rear seat, whose “face was beyond recognition,” bleeding profusely about the head. Appellant said he did not have a permit or registration.2 Tassa asked appellant
A wholly different account was set forth in appellant‘s testimony, which went as follows: Appellant met Jeffries on the evening of December 26, and Jeffries told him that he had been beaten and robbed by “some boys.” Jeffries said he was too drunk to drive, offered appellant some money to drive him home and led appellant to the station wagon. Appellant turned on the ignition—without a key, which Jeffries said had been taken—and started off, proceeding first to the home of appellant‘s sister-in-law, where he dropped off a 15-year old friend (who broadly corroborated appellant‘s testimony). Appellant further testified: He did not know he was driving a stolen car; he did not assault Jeffries, and had not told officer Tassa that he had; and his knuckles were not bleeding.
Both before the paneling of the jury and during the trial appellant‘s appointed counsel moved the trial judge inter alia for the production of officer Tassa‘s grand jury testimony and for suppression of the alleged oral confession allegedly given to Tassa at the scene of the apprehension. Both motions were denied both times. Appellant assails each ruling as reversible error.
I. THE ADMISSION
Appellant contends the court erred in admitting officer Tassa‘s testimony that appellant admitted beating Jeffries, because Tassa had admittedly not previously given appellant the warnings set forth in Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). If the contention is sound, it requires reversal of the judgment. We think it is not sound.
In Miranda the Supreme Court held that unless procedural safeguards of warnings were provided the prosecution could not use statements “stemming from custodial interrogation.” See 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612.
By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.
In the footnote appended to this sentence the Court said: “This is what we meant in Escobedo when we spoke of an investigation which had focused on an accused.”
Whether police have left the channel of “investigation” and run onto the shoals of “custodial interrogation” cannot be determined by reference to some chart clearly designating the various lights, bells, buoys and other chan-
Miranda specifically permits general on-the-street investigation of citizens not under restraint (384 U.S. at 477-478, 86 S.Ct. at 1629-1630). But obviously citizens are subject to some detention even in that kind of investigation. We think some inquiry can be made as part of an investigation notwithstanding limited and brief restraints by the police in their effort to screen crimes from relatively routine mishaps. It is not uncommon for citizens to forget their permits and registration cards. That this mishap produces incidental detention and restraint while the possibility of a stolen car is checked out, perhaps so brief as to be virtually unappreciated by the person involved,4 does not produce the kind of custodial situation contemplated by the Miranda doctrine.
The question as to the assault on Jeffries is more difficult. Appellant‘s counsel artfully dramatizes the situation by saying that Jeffries had already literally pointed the finger at appellant. In context, however, what we see is an officer taking account of a bleeding man. He asks, who beat you?—and gets only a mumble, for the man is drunk. The officer could not know what the beaten man was trying to indicate, or whether he was in a position to make or report any observation. What did the man mean by his finger—that appellant hit him? That appellant knew who did? The police officer thought it was unusual that a man was lying on the right rear seat. But what did it mean? Was the driver taking the man for a hostile ride? Or to the hospital? An assault is a misdemeanor, and not every fracas is an assault. The courts must look to the essence of the situation and it seems to us clear that the essence here was not an officer staging an interrogation that had focused on a subject but an officer reacting to a street scene and trying to run down the facts. There were two men before him, one reflecting signs of a possible assault, and he asked first one and then the other, what happened? We think that when the officer asked appellant if he had beaten Jeffries, he had not yet made a determination to arrest for assault but was rather engaged in sorting out the facts in a type of street investigation. Miranda did not require the officer to preface with the several warnings therein outlined the questions put to this appellant.
II. ACCESS TO OFFICER‘S GRAND JURY TESTIMONY
In the pre-trial motion for the production of officer Tassa‘s grand jury testimony appellant‘s counsel said he anticipated that Officer Tassa would be called to testify that defendant made certain incriminating statements. The motion,
On this appeal the parties urge different interpretations of the Dennis case. The government contends that Dennis involved nothing more than the application of the established “particularized need” test of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, 360 U.S. 395, 79 S.Ct. 1237, 3 L.Ed.2d 1323 (1959), to the facts before the Court. Appellant on the other hand directs our attention to the more sweeping language of Dennis and to the authorities,5 referred to in that opinion, which call for abandonment in one context or another of the time honored rule of grand jury secrecy. In our view, appellant‘s position comes closer to the mark.
In Dennis, the Supreme Court took pains to note that access by the criminal defendant to critical information possessed by the government has been the object of mounting concern by those involved with the administration of justice.6 Underlying Dennis and central to its meaning is the Court‘s basic premise that (384 U.S. at 873, 86 S.Ct. at 1851):
In our adversary system for determining guilt or innocence, it is rarely justifiable for the prosecution to have exclusive access to a storehouse of relevant fact. Exceptions to this are justifiable only by the clearest and most compelling considerations. [Footnotes omitted.]
The narrower question in Dennis and in the case at bar, however, is whether the “clearest and most compelling considerations” dictate that the grand jury testimony of a trial witness, in contradistinction to other evidence the government might have, be kept from the defendant. The Court looked to the legitimate reasons supporting the curtain of secrecy which the grand jury has traditionally enjoyed. Reference was made7 to the catalogue of reasons for secrecy assembled by Justice Brennan in his dissenting opinion, in which three other Justices joined, in Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, 360 U.S. 395, 405, 79 S.Ct. 1237, 1244 (1959):
(1) To prevent the accused from escaping before he is indicted and arrested or from tampering with the witnesses against him.
(2) To prevent disclosure of derogatory information presented to the grand jury against an accused who has not been indicted.
(3) To encourage complainants and witnesses to come before the grand jury and speak freely without fear that their testimony will be made public thereby subjecting them to possible discomfort or retaliation.
(4) To encourage the grand jurors to engage in uninhibited investigation and deliberation by barring disclosure of their votes and comments during the proceedings.8
[5] Grand jury secrecy which promotes these objectives has merit as furthering the vigorous functioning of that historic institution. Conversely, in the absence of such reasons for secrecy in an individual case, the mere fact that a witness’ prior testimony was given to grand jurors is not a clear and compelling rea-
The Government apparently argues that “particularized need” is required to be shown, even though it has not put forward any reasons for keeping secret a witness’ prior testimony. In support of this position, it points to the references in Dennis to the earlier Supreme Court cases laying down the test of “particularized need.”10 The references in the Dennis opinion to the “particularized need” precedents make clear that they are of limited value in defining the present state of the law. In one context, these earlier cases were narrowly viewed as limited to their particular facts.11 In another, more important context, they were cited for the principle not of secrecy but of disclosure,—as examples of cases in which the “Court has confirmed the trial court‘s power under
thorities, the Court went on to summarize its approach by saying:
These developments are entirely consonant with the growing realization that disclosure, rather than suppression, of relevant materials ordinarily promotes the proper administration of criminal justice. This realization is reflected in the enactment of the so-called Jencks Act, * * * responding to this Court‘s decision in Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, [77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103], which makes available to the defense a trial witness’ pretrial statements insofar as they relate to his trial testimony. It is also reflected in the expanding body of materials, judicial and otherwise, favoring disclosure in criminal cases analogous to the civil practice. [Footnotes and citations omitted.]
We cannot agree with the Government that Dennis involved the mere application of existing rules requiring a showing of particularized need.13
We do not hold that the production of a witness’ grand jury testimony should be compelled in every case upon a mere request. Disclosure in a particular case might undercut valid reasons for secrecy. Certainly the interest of secrecy may reasonably lead the judge to deny disclosure until the witness has testified at trial. Another circuit has held, in the exercise of its supervisory
In Dennis, the Court enumerated several “circumstances” which went “substantially beyond the minimum required” to demonstrate some need for disclosure, including: The testimony given before the grand jury was substantially fresher than that given at trial. The persons whose grand jury testimony was sought were key witnesses at trial. The determination of guilt or innocence turned on the accuracy of the testimony of the key witnesses. The witnesses involved had reasons for hostility toward petitioners. Finally, upon cross-examination, it developed that one witness professed that he had made material mistakes in earlier testimony. These factors going “substantially beyond the minimum required” are not all indispensable to a showing of
In the case at bar, we are concerned with a police officer testifying to a reported oral confession. For such a witness it is difficult to see a valid reason for secrecy, and we announce a “per se” rule that a defendant has the requisite “need” for the grand jury testimony of a police officer who testifies in relation to a confession.16 This of course does not necessarily require that his testimony, or all of it, be revealed if the Government, on appropriate application, shows need for a protective order.17
However, we do not think it is in the interest of justice to hold that this automatically constituted reversible error in rulings of the district court prior to the issuance of this opinion. Accordingly, we remand this case to the trial court for a hearing on the question of prejudice. At the hearing the court will itself inspect the officer‘s grand jury testimony, and of course, will allow the appellant to do the same. If it develops that due to inconsistencies there is a reasonable possibility that the statement could have been effectively utilized by the defense, a new trial should be had.18
So ordered.
I concur in the remand of the case for a determination of whether the defendant was prejudiced by the trial court‘s refusal to allow inspection of the grand jury minutes. As I understand the teaching of Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 86 S.Ct. 1840, 16 L.Ed.2d 973 (1966), there must be shown by defense counsel some specific need or purpose before the court is required to permit examination of the grand jury minutes. The need shown here was an inconsistency between a summary of the arresting officer‘s grand jury testimony and his testimony at a preliminary hearing and the trial. Both the hearing and the trial testimonies showed defendant‘s admission (of beating and robbing Jeffries) as coming before the stolen vehicle check was made, but the grand jury summary showed it as coming after the check was made.1 Although it is a close question, I feel that on these facts the defendant made out the requisite need under Dennis.
I do not join the majority‘s announcement of a “per se” rule—that in all cases involving police testimony about an oral confession the defendant shall have the right to inspect the grand jury minutes without being required to show a need for them. By eliminating the previous requirement that a need be shown, the rule will unnecessarily delay trial of the many criminal cases in which no need is present for allowing inspection. The Jencks Act grants defendants a right to discover the statements of prosecution witnesses2 and thus provides a strong tool for developing need. With such a tool available, it hardly seems unfair to require that a specific need for the grand jury minutes be demonstrated. I, accordingly, respectfully dissent from this portion of the majority opinion.