United States v. Messino

855 F. Supp. 955, 1994 WL 282156
District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided June 24, 1994·No. 93 CR 294·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ALESIA, District Judge.

Before the court are the pending pretrial motions of defendants. Many of the various motions are similar, if not identical, and so where appropriate the court will group its treatment of the motions. The court has previously described the contents of the Superseding Indictment in detail, and incorporates that discussion herein. See United States v. Messino, 852 F.Supp. 652, 653-55 (N.D.Ill.1994).

1. Defendant Christopher Richard Messino’s Motion to Suppress

Christopher Richard Messino seeks to have suppressed certain physical evidence seized and removed from said defendant’s Blue Island, Illinois, home pursuant to a warrant of seizure and monition, obtained ex parte pursuant to a civil forfeiture proceeding. Defendant’s theory is that the government did not afford defendant or any other interested party an opportunity to be heard before this seizure of his home and personal property, and that under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 492, 126 L.Ed.2d 490 (1993), the seizure upon ex parte warrant was illegal and the fruits thereof must be excluded. The government has asked for a hearing on this issue.

The government takes the position that any illegalities in the civil forfeiture proceeding cannot affect these criminal proceedings. Such a per se rule would seem to conflict with the general premise of exclusion. Illegal procedures that lead to exclusion of evidence are not always directly linked, at the time of the procedure, to the case number at which exclusion occurs.

The government also raises retroactivity of James Daniel Good. This is a bit of a misnomer. The real retroactivity-type issue may be whether a good faith exception may be applied, based upon the state of the law pre-James Daniel Good and the facts surrounding the seizure at issue here. Cf. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 918-21, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3418-19, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). *959 But the government is at least right that a straight line cannot be drawn from a violation of James Daniel Good to exclusion here. Therefore the motion cannot be resolved on the submitted papers, and further proceedings will be necessary.

Accordingly, Defendant Christopher Richard Messino’s Motion to Suppress is referred to the magistrate judge for a hearing and report and recommendation.

2. Defendant Clement Messino’s Motion to Suppress Illegally Seized Evidence

Defendant Clement Messino’s motion to suppress concerns evidence that was seized incident to or at an inventory after Clement Messino’s arrest by the Chicago Police Department on a weapons charge. A Cook County, Illinois, judge found the arrest lacked probable cause, and now defendant seeks to suppress evidence recovered either incident to or at an inventory after Clement Messino’s arrest. The evidence involved is a handgun and a notebook.

As far as the handgun is concerned, the government “does not intend” to use it. (Government’s Consolidated Response to Defendants’ Pretrial Motions (“Government’s Consolidated Response”) at 43, n. 3.) The court therefore will not explore Fourth Amendment issues regarding this piece of evidence, since no one appears interested in showing it to the trier of fact. Concerning the handgun, defendant’s motion is denied as moot.

As far as the notebook is concerned, it is apparent from the briefing on the motion that resolution of the notebook’s admissibility (as well as any implications of their being any tainted fruit from the notebook) revolves in part around determining the true nature of the seizure. The government’s primary defense as regards the notebook is that regardless of the legality of the arrest, the notebook was seized pursuant to an inventory that had independent legality because the ear was parked in a tow zone. A full airing of the facts here will require a hearing, since the court does not find defendant in explicit agreement with the government’s version based on the pleadings. Concerning the notebook and related tainted evidence issues, defendant’s motion is referred to the magistrate judge for a hearing and report and recommendation.

3. Motions to Dismiss Indictment Based on Tainted Grand Jury

Defendants Christopher Richard Messino, William Underwood and Michael Homerding have moved to dismiss the indictment and requested discovery and a hearing.

Defendants’ theory concerns a taint on the Special October 1992-1 Grand Jury, the grand jury that indicted them, stemming from facts underlying the conviction of grand juror Robert Girardi, a member of the grand jury. See United States v. Coffey, 854 F.Supp. 520, (1994). Mr. Girardi breached the secrecy of grand jury proceedings by leaking information to a defendant up for indictment before the grand jury. In Coffey, Judge Plunkett analyzed the propriety of dismissing the indictment as against codefendants of the recipient of leaks and concluded that those codefendants could not secure dismissal of their indictments based on the tainting.

A district court generally “may not dismiss an indictment for errors in grand jury proceedings unless such errors prejudiced the defendants.” Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U.S. 250, 254, 108 S.Ct. 2369, 2373, 101 L.Ed.2d 228 (1988) (applying Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a)); cf. Ortiz-Salas v. I.N.S., 992 F.2d 105, 107 (7th Cir.1993). An exception will apply where “the structural protections of the grand jury have been so compromised as to render the proceedings fundamentally unfair.” Bank of Nova Scotia, 487 U.S. at 257, 108 S.Ct. at 2374.

Here, the prejudice theory does not apply to defendants because there is no allegation that the grand jury improprieties affected the moving defendants or any of their codefendants. Defendants have no theory as to how the improprieties affected them. In Coffey, Judge Plunkett concluded that “there is no indication that Girardi’s conduct affected the grand jury’s decision to indict in any way.” Coffey, 854 F.Supp. at 523. That *960 conclusion is easier to reach here where the defendants at issue were farther away from Girardi’s improprieties.

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United States v. Messino, 855 F. Supp. 955, 1994 WL 282156 (N.D. Ill. 1994).

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