Grand Jury Materials – Federal Criminal Procedure

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Elliot Carlson, et al v. United States of America
Case No.: 15-2972
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and KANNE and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Grand Jury Materials – Federal Criminal Procedure

Elliot Carlson, along with a number of scholarly, journalistic, and historic organizations, seeks access to grand-jury materials sealed decades ago. The materials concern an investigation into the Chicago Tribune in 1942 for a story it published revealing that the U.S. military had cracked Japanese codes. The government concedes that there are no interests favoring continued secrecy. It nonetheless resists turning over the materials, on the sweeping ground that Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure entirely eliminates the district court’s common-law supervisory authority over the grand jury. It takes the position that no one (as far as we can tell) has the power to release these documents except for one of the reasons enumerated in Rule 6(e)(3)(E). If that is so, then Carlson and his allies must fail, because his request is outside the scope of Rule 6(e). We find nothing in the text of Rule 6(e) (or the criminal rules as a whole) that supports the government’s exclusivity theory, and we find much to indicate that it is wrong. In fact, the Rules and their history imply the opposite, which is why every federal court to consider the issue has adopted Carlson’s view that a district court’s limited inherent power to supervise a grand jury includes the power to unseal grand-jury materials when appropriate. Because the parties agree that this is an appropriate instance (if, in fact, the district court has this power) we affirm the order of the district court.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.