# Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 22, 1988 · 487 U.S. 250

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431400

## Case

- **Full name:** Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 22, 1988
- **Citations:** 487 U.S. 250; 56 U.S.L.W. 4714; 62 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5738; 108 S. Ct. 2369; 101 L. Ed. 2d 228; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2866
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Scalia
- **Judges:** Kennedy, Rehnquist, Brennan, White, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 894 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/9431400

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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 vi…
- 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 prosecut…
- 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”
- reasoning that “there is no reason not to apply [Rule 52(a)] to errors, defects, irregularities, or variances occurring before a grand jury just as we have applied it to such error occurring in the criminal trial itself’ (citations and quotations omitted)

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431400. Public record. Not legal advice.