In Re United States of America v. Jane Kember and Morris Budlong, Mary Sue Hubbard, Henning Heldt, Richard Weigand, and Gregory Willardson

648 F.2d 1354, 208 U.S. App. D.C. 380, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 12061
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedNovember 24, 1980
Docket80-2329 to 80-2332
StatusPublished
Cited by54 cases

This text of 648 F.2d 1354 (In Re United States of America v. Jane Kember and Morris Budlong, Mary Sue Hubbard, Henning Heldt, Richard Weigand, and Gregory Willardson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re United States of America v. Jane Kember and Morris Budlong, Mary Sue Hubbard, Henning Heldt, Richard Weigand, and Gregory Willardson, 648 F.2d 1354, 208 U.S. App. D.C. 380, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 12061 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

Opinion

Opinion PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM:

Appellants, subpoenaed by the prosecution to testify in a criminal trial currently in progress in the District Court and granted use immunity for that purpose, refused to testify and were held by the District Court to be in civil contempt. They appeal that judgment and challenge its validity on a number of grounds. For the reasons hereinafter appearing, we find none of their contentions to be availing, and we affirm.

I

On August 15, 1978, an indictment was returned charging appellants (Hubbard, Heldt, Weigand, and Willardson) and seven other persons, including the defendants in the current criminal case (Kember and Bud-long), with a number of federal and D.C. Code offenses. The latter consisted of ten counts of burglary, which were charged against both appellants and Kember and Budlong. On the same day warrants were issued for the arrest of Kember and Bud-long, who were in England, and the United States promptly requested the United Kingdom to extradite them.

On October 26,1979, appellants were convicted in a non-jury trial on stipulated evidence of one count of conspiring to obstruct justice (a federal offense). The presiding judge also enforced an asserted agreement under which the appellants, convicted of the one count, were to have all the other counts against them in the indictment dismissed if the conviction was not reversed on appeal; if, contrarily, the conviction was reversed, the prosecution could proceed on any of the remaining offenses charged in the indictment. On December 6, 1979, appellants were sentenced to prison terms and fined. Since December 21,1979, they have been at liberty on bail pending appeal.

On March 13, 1980, the extradition proceedings against Kember and Budlong were at long last completed after traversing the entire English judicial hierarchy from Bow Street Magistrate to the House of Lords (with a further futile application to the Home Secretary and the European Commission of Human Rights), and they were returned to the United States and arraigned before a federal magistrate in Washington, D. C. The Government represented to the magistrate that, under the terms of the British extradition order, Kember and Bud-long could be prosecuted only on the D.C. Code offenses joined in the indictment, i. e., the burglary counts. Their trial on these counts began in the District Court on October 27, 1980.

In anticipation of that trial, the Government subpoenaed the appellants to appear and to testify. A joint motion by appellants to quash the subpoenas was denied by the District Court on October 21, 1980 — on the eve of trial. At the trial itself, appellants were called as the prosecution’s first four witnesses. After stating their names, they declined to answer all other questions put to them, claiming their privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, as well as rights under the First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendments; they also urged that the court lacked jurisdiction to enforce the subpoenas. They were then granted immunity against use of their testimony under 18 U.S.C. §§ 6001 et seq., and were directed by the court to respond to the questions, but they refused to do so. After a voir dire hearing outside the presence of the jury, in which appellants renewed their earlier objections, the court made its contempt adjudication, but released appellants on their personal recognizance pending appellate review of the court’s action.

II

On appeal to this court, appellants have not pressed further any claim deriving from the First Amendment. They have, however, continued to urge that, since the Dis *1357 trict Court was called upon to try Kember and Budlong only for the D.C.Code offenses of burglary, as distinct from the U.S.Code crimes charged in the indictment, it lacked jurisdiction to proceed against the defendants. If such jurisdiction is wanting, appellants say, then the subpoenas for their appearance as witnesses must be quashed.

It is further argued on appeal that compelling the testimony of appellants constitutes (1) a denial of the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed them by the Fifth Amendment, and (2) a violation of their right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. Related to their latter contention is an insistence that, as potential trial defendants under the other criminal charges in the continuing indictment, they are unlawfully being deposed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3503(d) and Rules 15 and 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

They also assert that the Fourth Amendment prohibits their interrogation because it would be based on illegally seized evidence. Further, they claim that the District Court failed to take the steps necessary to assure that they were not questioned by reference to information flowing from illegal electronic surveillance by the Government. In addition, they attack the validity of the immunity grant based upon assertions that (1) the guidelines in the United States Attorneys’ Manual were not observed, (2) no showing of necessity for the testimony was made, (3) compelling Hubbard’s testimony would contravene a disposition agreement entered with the Government, and (4) the immunity statute has been discriminatorily employed. Finally, appellants complain of the District Court’s denial of their request for a hearing on the question whether the subpoenas were issued in the exercise of good faith by the prosecution.

Part III of this opinion will address the subject of the District Court’s jurisdiction; Part IV will deal with the Fifth and Sixth Amendment contentions, including the deposition argument; and Part V will speak to the Fourth Amendment'and all of the remaining points.

Ill

Appellants assert that the District Court lacks jurisdiction to try Kember and Bud-long for the purely local offenses currently before the court. Therefore, appellants urge, the court lacked power to compel their testimony and cite them for contempt. Appellants acknowledge that D.C.Code § 11-502(3) (1973) allows the U. S. District Court to try local D. C. offenses if those offenses are “joined in the information or indictment with any Federal offense” and that the original indictment against Kember and Budlong charged both federal and local offenses. Since Kember and Budlong were extradited and arraigned only on local charges, however, appellants contend that the District Court lost jurisdiction to try the case and was therefore without power to hold them in contempt for refusing to testify in response to the Government’s subpoenas. 1

The word jurisdiction is popular in the lexicon of lawyers and judges, so popular that its chameleon quality sometimes slips from our grasp. 2 But cases like the one before us force attention to the manifold *1358

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Bluebook (online)
648 F.2d 1354, 208 U.S. App. D.C. 380, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 12061, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-united-states-of-america-v-jane-kember-and-morris-budlong-mary-sue-cadc-1980.