# United States v. Mechanik

> Supreme Court of the United States · February 25, 1986 · 475 U.S. 66

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430350

## Case

- **Full name:** UNITED STATES v. MECHANIK Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** February 25, 1986
- **Citations:** 475 U.S. 66; 54 U.S.L.W. 4167; 106 S. Ct. 938; 89 L. Ed. 2d 50; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 3
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Burger
- **Judges:** Rehnquist, Burger, White, Powell, Stevens, O'Connor, Brennan, Blackmun, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 902 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430350

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a petit jury’s guilty verdict for drug-related offenses established the probable cause to charge defendants with the offenses and rendered harmless any error in the grand jury’s charging decision that may have resulted when two law enforcement agents testified in …
- holding 15 that, where a defendant was convicted at trial, “any error in the grand jury proceeding 16 connected with the charging decision was harmless” because a subsequent guilty verdict 17 by a petit jury “means not only that there was probable cause to believe that the def…
- holding that the harmless error rule, under Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a), applies to “ ‘errors, defects, irregularities or variances’ occurring before a grand jury just as [it] ... applie[s] ... to such error occurring in the criminal trial itself” and applying harmless error analysis …
- holding that because the defendants were convicted after trial beyond a reasonable doubt, probable cause undoubtedly *225 existed to bind them over for trial; therefore, any error in the grand jury proceedings connected with the charging decision was harmless beyond a reasonab…
- finding a violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(d)—which “protects against the danger that a defendant will be required to defend against a charge for which there is no probable cause to believe him guilty”— was harmless error not requiring reversal of the conviction

## Opinion text

Chief Justice Burger,
concurring.
I concur in Justice Rehnquist’s opinion for the Court. I write separately only to state my view that this case is controlled by Justice Black’s opinion for the Court in Costello v. United States, 350 U. S. 359 (1956).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430350. Public record. Not legal advice.