Criminal Procedure — immunity

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — immunity

Even though a defendant was given immunity by a state for information he provided, the federal government is not precluded from using the statements to prosecute the defendant.

“The plain language here reveals that the feds never immunized statements Bryant would make in cooperation with other authorities. Consider that for Bryant’s contract-based argument, he relies on the United States’ promise that, with some inapplicable exceptions, ‘no statement made or information provided pursuant to th[e federal immunity] agreement may be directly introduced as evidence against [him] in any criminal case.’ But because that agreement was for Bryant ‘to cooperate with the United States … in its efforts to enforce federal law,’ the statements he gave Illinois authorities in ostensible support of their efforts to enforce state law were not provided “pursuant to” the federal agreement. This reading is appropriately literal. Allowing Bryant to lever the federal cooperation agreement to bar the government’s use of his statements to Illinois would grant him the benefit of a bargain he never had. Cf. United States v. Eliason, 3 F.3d 1149, 1153 (7th Cir. 1993) (‘If Eliason wanted to limit the use the federal government could make of the information he provided to Florida prosecutors, he and his counsel were obliged to follow the accepted procedures and at least make an attempt to obtain such an agreement or promise from the federal government.’).”

Affirmed.

13-1578 U.S. v. Bryant

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, McCuskey, J., Van Bokkelen, J.