Urseth v. City of Dayton

110 F.R.D. 245, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27979
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedMarch 19, 1986
DocketNo. C 3-84-103
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 110 F.R.D. 245 (Urseth v. City of Dayton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Urseth v. City of Dayton, 110 F.R.D. 245, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27979 (S.D. Ohio 1986).

Opinion

DECISION AND ENTRY SUSTAINING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER AND TO QUASH SUBPOENA (DOCS. # 71, 74); PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL PRODUCTION AND INSPECTION SUSTAINED (DOC. #84); IMPOSITION OF PROTECTIVE ORDER

RICE, District Judge.

This case comes before the Court for resolution of certain discovery impasses which have arisen between the parties.

The first of these discovery impasses arises from Plaintiff’s subpoena duces tecum upon Jose Lopez, the Special Prosecutor of the Special Grand Jury which investigated and then indicted Defendants Varvel, Navarre, Chabali, Shows, Holland, Reynolds, Czisma, and Shaw. Defendants City of Dayton (Dayton) and Tyree Broomfield have filed a Motion for Protective Order regarding the deposition of Jose Lopez/Motion to Quash Subpoena. (Doc. # 71). Mr. Lopez has filed a similar motion. (Doc. #74).

The second and related discovery impasse stems from Dayton’s refusal to produce certain items and documents for Plaintiff on the basis of the executive privilege covering internal affairs files. The subject of this privilege has been briefed both in conjunction with the attempted deposition of Mr. Lopez as well as in Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel. (Doc. # 84).

(A) Grand Jury Secrecy.

Defendants Dayton and Broomfield, as well as Special Prosecutor Lopez, contend that Plaintiff’s subpoena duces tecum upon Mr. Lopez is an attempt to violate the policy of grand jury secrecy. Defendants contend that the materials which Plaintiff seeks are documents which were provided to Jose Lopez due to his role as Special Prosecutor, and that Plaintiff must demonstrate a “compelling need” to take the deposition and to obtain any of the documents which she seeks from the Special Prosecutor. Plaintiff contends that the Special Grand Jury’s investigation is highly relevant to her causes of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and her pendant wrongful death action in this Court. Plaintiff argues that the only aspect of grand jury proceedings which are shrouded in secrecy is the actual testimony of witnesses before the grand jury, testimony which she specifically excluded from her document request of Mr. Lopez.

(1) Applicable Law.

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(2) provides as follows:

A grand juror, an interpreter, a stenographer, an operator of a recording device, a typist who transcribes recorded testimony, an attorney for the government, or any person to whom disclosure is made under paragraph 3(A)(ii) of this subdivision shall not disclose matters occurring before the grand jury, except as otherwise provided for in these rules. No obligation of secrecy may be imposed on any person except in accordance with this rule. A knowing violation of Rule 6 may be punished as a contempt of court.

Rule 6(e)(3)(C)(i) is an exception to this general rule of secrecy, providing that disclosure otherwise prohibited by Rule 6(e)(2) may be made “when so directed by a court [248]*248preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.”

Rule 6(e)(2) represents the main statutory expression of the common presumption that grand jury proceedings should remain secret. United States v. Jeter, 775 F.2d 670, 675 (6th Cir.1985). The federal courts have applied Rule 6(e)(2) to requests in civil cases for disclosure of grand jury materials. United States v. Short, 671 F.2d 178, 186 (6th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1119, 102 S.Ct. 2932, 73 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1982) (discussing Douglas Oil Company v. Petrol Stops Northwest, 441 U.S. 211, 99 S.Ct. 1667, 60 L.Ed.2d 156 (1978)). As noted supra, Plaintiff has advanced a § 1983 claim in this Court, and has also invoked this Court’s pendant jurisdiction for a state wrongful death cause of action. This Court is confident that the federal approach to disclosure of grand jury materials should prevail in this case, which involves the investigations of a state special grand jury. ' Not only is a federal civil rights action involved, but adoption of a state disclosure standard would allow for the possibility that abuses in the state grand jury process could be cordoned off from the probe of federal civil rights actions, depending on the restrictiveness of the state’s disclosure rule.

Plaintiff’s suggestion in her brief, which cites the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in Petition for Disclosure of Evidence Presented to Franklin County Grand Juries in 1970, 63 Ohio St.2d 212, 407 N.E.2d 513 (Ohio 1980), is that Ohio provides a standard of grand jury disclosure which is applicable in this matter and which perhaps differs from the federal standard. Even were this Court to conclude that state law should guide the instant dispute as to grand jury secrecy, the Court notes that Ohio Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(E), which governs disclosure of grand jury materials, contains language identical in its key parts to Federal Rule 6(e)(2).1 Moreover, the Ohio Supreme Court indicated in Petition, without providing a construction of the Ohio rule, that grand jury disclosures ordered by the Ohio courts are to be governed by standards identical to the disclosure standards imposed by the federal courts under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(2).

The Ohio Supreme Court’s holding in Petition was that grand jury transcripts may be disclosed, under certain circumstances, in civil cases. In arriving at its holding, the court observed:

In adopting this rule [the rule that generally grand jury proceedings are secret, except in certain circumstances], we have relied heavily on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company v. United States (1959), 360 U.S. 395 [79 S.Ct. 1237, 3 L.Ed.2d 1323]____ Pittsburgh Plate Glass involved Fed.R.Cr.P. 6(e). In relying on Pittsburgh Plate Glass, this court recognized that courts in this state, under their inherent powers, have essentially the same control over grand juries as federal courts have under Fed.R.Cr.P. 6(e). As a consequence, we look to the United States Supreme Court’s decisions regarding Fed.R.Cr.P. 6(e) for guidance in the case at bar.

63 Ohio St.2d at 216, 407 N.E.2d at 517 (footnote omitted). From the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in Petition, then, it would appear that Ohio’s approach to secrecy would not deviate from, or would likely be substantially similar to, the feder[249]*249al approach under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(2). The Court also notes the Ohio Supreme Court’s lack of discomfort in Petition

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Bluebook (online)
110 F.R.D. 245, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27979, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/urseth-v-city-of-dayton-ohsd-1986.