United States v. Giusti

22 M.J. 733, 1986 CMR LEXIS 2469
CourtU S Coast Guard Court of Military Review
DecidedJune 3, 1986
DocketCGCM 9974; Docket No. 859
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 22 M.J. 733 (United States v. Giusti) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U S Coast Guard Court of Military Review primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Giusti, 22 M.J. 733, 1986 CMR LEXIS 2469 (cgcomilrev 1986).

Opinion

DECISION

BAUM, Chief Judge:

Appellant was convicted, contrary to his pleas, of ten specifications of marijuana use and possession under Article 92, Uniform Code of Military Justice and seven specifications, by exceptions and substitutions, of dereliction of duty under the same Article by using marijuana while serving as coxswain in command of a U.S. Coast Guard vessel underway. He was sentenced to a bad conduct discharge, confinement at hard labor for six months, forfeiture of $382 per month for six months, and reduction to E-l. The findings and sentence were approved below and are chai[734]*734lenged by appellant before this Court in six assignments of error.

The first assignment asserts error by the military judge for failure to suppress testimony in violation of the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500. In that regard, appellant, at trial, moved to suppress the testimony of an undercover agent who was the key Government witness. The basis for the motion was the Government’s failure to provide appellant with complete, understandable tape recordings of that agent’s testimony given at the investigation convened in accordance with Article 32, Uniform Code of Military Justice to determine whether a general court-martial was warranted. The pretrial investigating officer thought he was tape recording the proceedings, but it was later discovered that several of the tapes were either blank or garbled, leaving a significant gap in the recorded testimony of the special agent. Appellant acknowledges that there was no requirement to record the Article 32 investigation testimony verbatim,1 but asserts that once the project was undertaken, the Government’s failure to produce complete tapes that could be understood was a violation of the Jencks Act requiring suppression of the witness’s testimony. He also argues that the evidence indicates one of the tapes produced has been lost by the Government.

The “so-called” Jencks Act, can be found in 18 U.S.C. § 3500 and provides, in part, as follows:

Demands for production of statements and reports of witnesses
(b) After a witness called by the United States has testified on direct examination, the court shall, on motion of the defendant, order the United States to produce any statement (as hereinafter defined) of the witness in the possession of the United States which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified. If the entire contents of any such statement relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness, the court shall order it to be delivered directly to the defendant for his examination and use.
(d) If the United States elects not to comply with an order of the court under subsection (b) or (c) hereof to deliver to the defendant any such statement, or such portion thereof as the court may direct, the court shall strike from the record the testimony of the witness, and the trial shall proceed unless the court in its discretion shall determine that the interests of justice require that a mistrial be declared.
(e) The term “statement”, as used in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section in relation to any witness called by the United States, means—
(1) a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him;
(2) a stenographic, mechanical, electrical, or other recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by said witness and recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement; or
(3) a statement, however taken or recorded, or a transcription thereof, if any, made by said witness to a grand jury.

After hearing testimony on the availability and condition of the tape recordings and any written transcripts, the military judge denied the motion, finding that there was not a recording at the end of the investigation that could have been used and, even if there was, the good faith loss exception to the Jencks Act remedy of striking the witness’s testimony pertains. In any event, the military judge did not believe the [735]*735Jencks Act applied to the situation with which he was confronted.

At the time of the judge’s ruling, the court of Military Appeals had not decided whether the Jencks Act covered testimony presented at an Article 32 investigation in the presence of the accused and his counsel. The other Courts of Military Review had held the Jencks Act applicable in such situations, but the Coast Guard Court of Military Review had not addressed the question. On March 31, 1986, the United States Court of Military Appeals in U.S. v. Marsh, 21 M.J. 445 (C.M.A.1986) confronted the issue and found the conclusion of Jencks Act applicability by the other Courts of Military Review justified “on the basis of the broad language of the statute in its amended form (see generally United States v. Calley, 46 C.M.R. 1131, 1191-93 (A.C.M.R.1973), aff'd on other grounds, 22 U.S.C.M.A. 534, 48 C.M.R. 19 (1973)); its express inclusion in section (e)(3) of statements to a grand jury; and its failure expressly to except statements made in the presence of the accused and his counsel.” Id. at 451.

This Court, not having dealt with the subject before, takes this opportunity to note certain reservations. We do not believe the express inclusion within the Jencks Act of statements to a grand jury — a secret proceeding without accused and counsel present — necessarily leads to the conclusion that Article 32 investigations are also included within the Act. There are many differences between a grand jury and an Article 32 investigation, not the least of which is the open nature of the latter, with accused and counsel present throughout as active participants in the development of evidence and cross examination of witnesses. Moreover, broad legislative language and the failure of Congress to expressly except statements made in the presence of the accused and counsel should not, in our view, impel a finding of coverage by the Act, if the legislative history indicates otherwise. We urge the Court of Military Appeals to examine again at the first opportunity the holding in Marsh, supra, and reconsider whether the Jencks Act properly should apply to testimony at an Article 32 investigation in the presence of an accused and counsel.

At that time, scrutiny might be given to the initial Supreme Court decision on this issue and the Congressional action which followed. Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 668, 77 S.Ct. 1007,1013,1 L.Ed.2d 1103 (1957), the landmark case which provided the impetus and the name for the legislation that emerged, involved defense requests for reports given by the principal prosecution witnesses to government agents while the witnesses were acting as paid government informers of domestic communist activities in the late 1940’s. The contents of the statements were not provided the accused and his counsel and the trial judge denied a defense motion to inspect the documents. The Court of Appeals upheld that denial on the ground that the defense had not shown an inconsistency between the testimony and the statements’ contents.

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Related

United States v. Dougal
32 M.J. 863 (U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review, 1991)
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26 M.J. 859 (U S Coast Guard Court of Military Review, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
22 M.J. 733, 1986 CMR LEXIS 2469, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-giusti-cgcomilrev-1986.