stating that an indictment may be quashed because of prosecutorial misconduct only where the improper conduct “substantially influenced the grand jury’s decision to indict or if there is grave doubt that the decision to indict was free from the substantial influence of such violations” (internal quotation marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- stating that an indictment may be quashed because of prosecutorial misconduct only where the improper conduct “substantially influenced the grand jury’s decision to indict or if there is grave doubt that the decision to indict was free from the substantial influence of such violations” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- explaining that Rule 6(e) errors may be "remedied adequately by means other than dismissal," including, e.g. , punishing the violation as a contempt of court, disciplining a prosecutor and requesting the bar or DOJ initiate disciplinary proceedings, and chastising the prosecutor in a published opinion
- holding federal courts cannot exercise their supervisory authority to circumvent the requirements of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a), which requires federal courts to “disregard[ ]” any error in criminal proceedings that does not affect a defendant’s substantial rights
- explaining that a facially valid indictment is not subject to “a challenge to the reliability or competence of the evidence presented to the grand jury,” because “a court may not look behind the indictment to determine if the evidence upon which it was based is 15 sufficient”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by State v. Brown, 293 Ga. 493 (2013)
Likewise the State’s citation to Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States, 487 U. S. 250 (108 SCt 2369, 101 LE2d 228) (1988) is inapposite because that case did not challenge the indictment on the basis that it was not returned in open court.
Distinguished by United States v. Derrick, 163 F.3d 799 (1998)
Instead, the district court relied on a number of district court cases — all of which predated Hasting or Nova Scotia or both, and most of which are easily distinguishable from the present case in any event.
The opinion
Justice Scalia,
concurring.
I agree that every United States court has an inherent supervisory authority over the proceedings conducted before it, which assuredly includes the power to decline to proceed on the basis of an indictment obtained in violation of the law. I also agree that we have authority to review lower courts’ exercise of this supervisory authority, insofar as it affects the judgments brought before us, though I do not see the basis for any direct authority to supervise lower courts. Cf. Frazier v. Heebe, 482 U. S. 641, 651-652 (1987) (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting). Even less do I see a basis for any court’s “supervisory powers to discipline the prosecutors of its jurisdiction,” United States v. Hasting, 461 U. S. 499, 505 (1983), except insofar as concerns their performance before the court and their qualifications to be members of the court’s bar.
I join the opinion of the Court because I understand the supervisory power at issue here to be of the first sort.